PROTECTING AMERICA:
COLD WAR DEFENSIVE SITES
A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK THEME STUDY
Prepared by:
John S. Salmon, Historical Consultant
Produced by:
The National Historic Landmarks Program
Cultural Resources
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Washington, D.C.
October 201
Contents
Historic Contexts
Foreword
Introduction
Part One: The Cold War to the Death of StaHn
Part Two: From Deep Freeze to Detente
Part Three: The End of the Wall
Time Line: The Cold War
Associated Property Types
Types of Properties Associated with the Cold War
Registration Requirements for National Historic Landmark Designation
Methodology
Study Results
National Historic Landmarks
National Historic Landmarks Study List
Bibliography
Appendices
A. Registration Requirements for Listing in the National Register of Historic Places
B. National Register Properties and Study List
C. Cold War-Related National Park Service Units
D. Preliminary National Inventory of Cold War-Related Sites and Resources
Historic Contexts
Foreword
On January 6, 2009, Congressman Rush Holt introduced H.R. 146, the Omnibus Public
Land Management Act of 2009, in the House of Representatives. The bill was entitled
"An act to designate certain land as components of the National Wilderness Preservation
System, to authorize certain programs and activities in the Department of the Interior and
the Department of Agriculture, and for other purposes." Cosponsors included
Congressmen Earl Blumenauer, John Dingell, Eni Faleomavaega, Maurice Hinchey,
James Langevin, James McGovem, Gary Miller, Patrick Murphy, Steven Rothman, and
Peter Welch. The bill was referred to the House Natural Resources Committee, which
reported it favorably to the House of Representatives on March 5. The House already
had approved the bill on March 3, and the Senate approved it with changes on March 19.
The House voted to approve the amended bill on March 25. President Barack Obama
signed the bill into law (P.L. 1 1 1-11) on March 30, 2009.
Section 72 1 0 of the Act authorized a Cold War Sites Theme Study. The study was first
proposed by Representative Joel Hefley (H.R. 107) and Senator Harry Reid (S. 1257) in
2001, but the legislation had not passed then. Section 7210 contained the same language
as the 2001 bills: "The Secretary [of the Interior] shall conduct a national historic
landmark theme study to identify sites and resources in the United States that are
significant to the Cold War." The Act directed the Secretary to consult with federal and
state historic preservation officers, among others, and to consider the following resources
while gathering information and conducting the study:
(A) The inventory of sites and resources associated with the
Cold War compiled by the Secretary of Defense under
section 8120(b)(9) of the Department of Defense
Appropriations Act, 1991 (Public Law 101-511; 104
Stat. 1906; and
(B) Historical studies and research of Cold War sites and
resources, including —
(i) Intercontinental ballistic missiles;
(ii) Flight training centers;
(iii) Manufacturing facilities;
(iv) Communications and command centers (such as
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado);
(v) Defensive radar networks (such as the Distant
Early Warning Line);
(vi) Nuclear weapons test sites (such as the Nevada
test site); and
(vii) Strategic and tactical aircraft
During the course of the study, tribal historic preservation officers were contacted, as
well as federal and state historic preservation officers. Communications with the
Department of Defense revealed that no single inventory of Cold War sites had been
compiled; rather, since 1991 several topical surveys and inventories have been conducted
and prepared. Several of them, including historic contexts, are available on Web sites
and are listed in the Bibliography in this theme study.
Because the Cold War era (1945-1991) is so recent, and the universe of potentially
related properties is so vast, relatively few such properties have been identified,
designated as National Historic Landmarks, or listed in the National Register of Historic
Places. The majority of properties are fewer than fifty years old, and many have been
demolished as sites have been deactivated or have been so altered as to be lacking in
sufficient integrity for designation or listing. Although a few surveys have been made
and several historic contexts have been written, there is an urgent need for more because
the resources are disappearing.
The historic contexts section of this study is divided into three parts. The first part
focuses on the origins and evolution of the Cold War from World War II until the death
of Josef Stalin in 1953. This section discusses the ideological differences between the
two principal adversaries, the dawn of the atomic age, and the weapons systems that each
side developed. The second part concentrates on the Cold War at its coldest, as the
United States and the Soviet Union appeared to settle into a period of endless
provocations and proxy wars and the threat of nuclear annihilation often seemed likely to
become a reality. By the end of this period, both sides had come to accept that matters
could not be allowed to continue in these patterns, that a new way of dealing with each
other had to be found. Detente was the first step. The third part brings the history of the
Cold War to its conclusion, from the end of the Vietnam War and the beginnings of a
thaw in relations because of presidential diplomacy, the rise of dissent in the Soviet
Union (especially in Eastern Europe), and the fmal collapse of the Soviet economic and
political structure.
This historic context should enable the researcher to understand the basic developments
and the ways in which the weapons systems and defense programs of the United States
were affected by international affairs and the political and military challenges of the Cold
War era.
Although the Cold War touched virtually every aspect of life in the United States and
abroad, the principal focus of this theme study is on the types of sites and resources
described in Section 7210 of H.R. 146. Other important themes outside the scope of this
study could be mentioned only briefly here — the home front, the influence of
consumerism, the nuclear weapons complex, the civil defense system, the antiwar
movement, and the movements for civil rights and other forms of social change, to name
but a few. It is suggested that they be considered for future studies related to the Cold
War.
Introduction
As World War II ended, the world entered what has become known as the Cold War — a
term that financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch first used in a speech on
April 16, 1947, to describe the increasingly chilly relations between the Soviet Union and
the United States. In fact, although the two great powers were allied against Germany
during World War II, relations between them had never been warm. The Soviets
continued to resent the fact that America supported the Whites over the Reds during the
Russian Revolution, when the United States invaded Murmansk, Archangel, and
Vladivostok in 1918, engaged Soviet forces in combat, and remained on Russian soil
until 1920. In America, Soviet communism was immediately seen as a threat to
capitalism (the "Red Menace") and sparked the infamous Palmer Raids against suspected
revolutionaries in 1920. The raids were just the first of several attempts by ambitious
American politicians to whip up anticommunist hysteria during the twentieth century.
Mutual suspicion and ideological opposition, then, typified the relations between the
Americans and the Soviets from the beginning. The alliance of World War II was largely
a marriage of convenience to oppose Hitler's fascism, which both sides agreed was the
larger threat at the moment. Once the hot war ended, the United States and the Soviet
Union resumed their previously distant relationship, but with new and dangerous
elements to consider.
Two facts dominated the Cold War Era, which is defined for the purposes of this theme
study as the period between 1 945 and 1 99 1 : the United States and the West vied against
the Soviet Union and its satellites in a global political and military struggle for supremacy,
and the threat — sometimes seemingly the promise — of nuclear obliteration hung over all
the Earth like the Sword of Damocles. Day in and day out for four and a half decades,
the two sides maneuvered. Puppet states, proxy wars, espionage and counterespionage,
overt and covert operations, subtle intimidation and raw violence, threats and bluster,
public pronouncements and secret treaties, alliances and betrayals, paranoia and credulity,
lies mixed with truth, smoke and mirrors — each side toyed with reality and illusion to
gain advantage. To many people, the greatest delusion of all was the belief that mere
mortals could somehow control the means of annihilation and keep the finger hovering
over the button from ever pushing it. The world watched with white knuckles as time
after time, each side slipped and slid closer to the fatal moment in a clumsy danse
macabre. Would this be the day that one or both made a final miscalculation? In
America, children gasped whenever television screens went black in the middle of an
evening sitcom, the word BULLETIN dropped into view, and a grim voice intoned, "We
interrupt this program for a special announcement." Were the missiles on their way? To
most Americans, the Cold War was an era of constant low-grade fear and worry
punctuated by unforgettable moments of sheer terror.
Outside the relatively safe haven of the United States, with its protective shield of
missiles and long-range bombers and Distant Early Warning stations, however, much of
the world's population experienced numbing fear every day. The grinding oppression of
Soviet life, the secret police, the disappearances, the Gulag, the wars of "revolution" and
"liberation," the episodes of wholesale slaughter, the trading of one despot for another.
crushed the spirits or took the lives of millions. For most of the Cold War, it appeared to
Americans that the advantage lay with the Soviets, whose leaders plotted and schemed
behind the Iron Curtain, safe from observation, and who supposedly orchestrated the
International Communist Conspiracy, directed events at the minutest level, and always
seemed a step ahead of the West. To them most Americans ascribed almost supernatural
strength and confidence, the result of their steadfast faith in the unifying theory of
communism and their unshakable conviction that history was on their side. The West, in
contrast, seemed a mishmash of conflicting interpretations of "democracy," governments
that operated in a chaotic spectrum ranging from constitutional monarchies to socialist
states, and national leaders who squabbled openly with their peers as often as they
cooperated with each other. The West, with its vaunted concern for the individual, its
openness, and its reluctance to resort to violence, often appeared weak in contrast to the
Soviets, with their alleged esteem of the group, their blatant lies and bluster, and their
casual brutality. When Nikita Khrushchev appeared to brag, "We will bury you," behind
the eruption of Western outrage lay the secret fear that he might be right.
And yet, as we know now, so much of what appeared as Soviet strength was a sham — a
flimsy facade rotting from the inside out. With the perspective of hindsight and the
revelations offered by declassified Soviet and Western archives, it is the eventual
collapse of the Soviet Union that seems almost preordained, not the end of the West. The
apparent strengths of the Soviet system — centralized control and a unified political and
economic philosophy — were in fact its weaknesses. The end of the Cold War came
swiftly in a cascade of unforgettable images as the Soviet edifice toppled. Television
viewers around the world watched cheering East Berliners attack the despised Wall with
sledgehammers and bare hands, while East German guards merely looked on instead of
machine-gunning them to death. Russian president Boris Yeltsin stood atop a tank
denouncing a coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and when the
plotters, half drunk, held a press conference to announce that they had taken over because
Gorbachev was "indisposed," the crowd laughed and the plotters' imminent failure was
obvious in their stunned expressions. Another shocking image: Romanian tyrant Nicolae
Ceausescu was booed and hissed off the podium by a throng of supposed supporters, his
eyes wide in disbelief before the state-run television suddenly stopped transmitting. And
in Wenceslas Square in Prague, a televised image quite the opposite: Alexander Dubcek
walked onto a balcony to thunderous cheers, the personification of the triumph of hope
over despair, back from the dead after Soviet tanks ground his Prague Spring into the dirt
so many years earlier. The prelude to these scenes occurred, perhaps, in June 1 979, when
Pope John Paul II made his first visit home to Poland after his election and told the
millions who flocked to see him despite Soviet disapproval: "Be not afraid." When the
people ceased being afraid, the end came quickly.
Such scenes were unimaginable in 1945, of course, as World War II ground to an end and
the Cold War began. Of the three great Allied commanders, only one — Soviet leader
Josef Stalin — remained alive or in office when the Potsdam Conference began in July
1945. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died in April, and his successor, Harry S
Truman, probably knew less about America's atomic bomb than Stalin did. Prime
Minister Winston S. Churchill was voted out of office in the midst of the conference,
replaced by Clement Atlee. It was Stalin who was best prepared of the three by
experience and cunning to influence the postwar world. Because he considered the
expansion of that influence as essential to the survival of the Soviet Union and the
communist system in the face of perceived Western hostility, he was prepared to act.
Atlee and Truman, however, were primarily concerned with rebuilding Europe and
avoiding massive unemployment as their armies demobilized. Stalin had the initiative.
The United States, however, had "The Bomb," and that fact dominated everything else.
Diplomatic pushing and shoving is common among the victors after a war as they seek to
satisfy their constituencies' desire for revenge, reconstruction, and fiiture security. The
jousting is carried on with some recognition of semi-equality: all have suffered from the
effects of war, all have challenges facing them on the home front, and all want to attain
some semblance of peace and normality. The atomic bomb, however, made the United
States "more equal" than the others, a fact that Stalin could not abide. First he had to get
the bomb for the Soviet Union, and then he had to ensure that it was at least as
threatening to America as its bomb was to his country, to restore the balance that the
bomb had upset. Thus, as World War II ended, the Cold War era began.
The next four and a half decades comprised a period during which each side suspected
that the other was preparing for preemptive nuclear attack, or at least was considering the
possibility. Each new weapon and delivery system, each new defensive radar network,
and every advance in technology was developed in reaction to or in anticipation of a
similar program on the other side. Uncertainty bred fear and paranoia among leaders as
well as among ordinary people. Each side assumed that ulterior motives were behind any
action by the other side, and that nothing was as straightforward as it appeared.
Propaganda and slogans frequently took the place of meaningfiil dialogue. To the United
States, the Soviets appeared philosophically unified and willing and able to crush even
the slightest dissent with sledgehammer brutality. Surely such a system had as its
ultimate aim world domination and our imminent destruction? And even more fearsome
than the outside threat was the enemy within: spies, real and imagined, who fed the
anticommunist hysteria and witch-hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-
American Activities Committee (HUAC).
On their side, the Soviets feared that America and its allies, while eschewing overt
violence, intended to surround, "contain," and finally smother them under the guise of
"spreading democracy" around the globe. Stalin, then, when accused of seeking world
domination, could suggest with some justification that the Americans sought the same
goal for themselves. Stalin had a counterstrategy: dominate as much of Europe as
possible, wait for the inevitable war to erupt among the capitalist nations (as communist
theory predicted), watch as one European country after another adopted the communist
ideology, and then pick up the pieces. The story of the Cold War from the Soviet side is
about the slow failure of this strategy, which the Soviet leaders clung to for far too long
in the face of reality. The war among the capitalists never happened; given the choice,
one European nation after another chose capitalism (in some form) over communism; and
as the decades rolled by, citizens of communist countries made the same choice, leaving
Soviet authorities with nothing but tanks and bullets to enforce their will, even among
their satellites. In the end, the West clearly had won the war of ideas.
The West also won the military side of the Cold War — the arms race — even though the
Soviet Union eventually reached parity in numbers of missiles. Despite early American
fears of missile and bomber "gaps" (more imagined than real), and the shocking Soviet
launches of the first satellite and the first human into orbit, the vibrant American
economy could support weapons and missile development as well as produce an
abundance of consumer goods. The centrally controlled Soviet economy could not do
both, much to the chagrin of its leaders as its shortcomings became obvious to Soviet
consumers. The Soviet leaders abandoned the "space race" early, and American
innovations in technology as well as in weapons and rocketry eventually gave the United
States such a lead in the arms race that although the Soviets reached missile parity, they
could not catch up on technological matters. President Ronald Reagan's Strategic
Defense Initiative, the "Star Wars" defense system, derided by many in America as
unrealistic, was realistic enough to panic the Soviet leadership. Reagan insisted that SDI
would make nuclear weapons obsolete, and if they were obsolete, then why not destroy
them all? Shortly thereafter, Mikhail Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader who also favored
a world free of nuclear weapons, took Reagan at his word and the two men ended the
arms race essentially on American terms.
The final act of the Cold War came with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as one
satellite state after another declared its independence and replaced or reformed its
government. Most of these changes took place without bloodshed — Romania being an
exception — and the Soviet leadership accepted the inevitable. There was no repeat of the
bloody crushing of the Hungarian rebellion of 1956, or the suffocation of the Prague
Spring of 1968. Gorbachev did not have the stomach for raw force. Finally, on
Christmas Day 1991, acknowledging reality, Gorbachev signed a decree officially
dissolving the Soviet Union. The Cold War was over.
The United States as well as the Soviet Union created a vast infrastructure to support a
complex of offensive and defensive weapons systems during the Cold War. This
infrastructure included facilities and sites for developing, testing, manufacturing, and
storing the weapons; expanded military installations for use as staging and training
centers; a network of defensive radar and communications stations; and a host of
command and control centers. Not all of these sites survived the Cold War, being
scrapped or greatly altered as strategies and weapons systems changed. Those that did
survive are now mostly obsolete, although some have been modified for other uses. This
theme study is intended to help with the identification and evaluation of Cold War
resources.
Part One: The Cold War to the Death of Stalin
In May 1945, the European phase of World War II came to an end. On May 7, German
military leaders surrendered unconditionally to the Allies at Rheims, France. Because the
Western nations were, in the opinion of the Soviets, overrepresented at this first surrender
ceremony, a second one was held in Berlin, Germany, the next day. With the Soviets
more or less satisfied, the attention of the Allies turned to the Pacific, where training was
underway for the invasion of Japan. The cost of that invasion in terms of Japanese and
Allied lives was estimated in the millions. Based on the Americans' experience during
more than three years of war in the Pacific, as well as on Japanese propaganda and
exhortations, there was no reason to believe that Japanese soldiers and civilians would
defend their home islands with any less zeal than the troops who died almost to a man on
Iwo Jima and elsewhere. A vast slaughter seemed imminent.'
The Americans, however, had a supposedly secret weapon, the atomic bomb. Working in
collaboration with the British and benefitting from scientists who had fled anti-Semitism
in Europe, they had succeeded where the Germans had failed. The Soviets, engaged in a
fight to the death with the Nazis in the heart of Russia, had not had the wherewithal to
make a serious effort to build their own bomb. On July 16, one day before the opening of
the Potsdam Conference, the United States successfiilly exploded an atomic bomb in a
test code-named Trinity, at the White Sands Proving Ground near Alamogordo, New
Mexico. Josef Stalin, who had a nest of spies embedded in the principal research and
development site at Los Alamos, New Mexico, was less than surprised when President
Harry S Truman informed him of the test, since he had learned of the Manhattan Project
long before Truman did. Stalin did profess to be surprised and appalled a short time later,
however, when he learned that the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on
August 6. A second bomb followed on August 9, at Nagasaki, and the Japanese
surrendered on August 14, ending World War II.
The end of the war left many nations in a shambles, with economies demolished,
infrastructures destroyed, industries ruined, cities and towns in rubble, political systems
in chaos, and populations on the verge of starvation. Although America emerged
relatively unscathed by comparison, and as the strongest country on the planet, Truman
was not alone in his uncertainty about the nation's future. Would the economic
recovery — the end of the Great Depression — secured by massive wartime spending
continue? Would unemployment rise as the armed forces demobilized? Would the
United States be able to maintain its dominance over an increasingly aggressive Soviet
Union, which soon made clear its interest in controlling much of Europe and the Far
East? Everywhere Truman looked, he encountered unanswerable questions. At a time
when America might have exuded confidence about the fiiture, instead it felt insecure.
To safeguard the country's future, Truman believed that he could not allow any
' John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York, NY: The Penguin Press, 2005), 5-8.
^ Charles R. Loeber, Building the Bombs: A History of the Nuclear Weapons Complex, 2nd ed.
(Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories, 2005), 63-76. For a selected inventoi^ of research and
development sites, see Appendix D, pages 00-00. For a selected inventory of test sites, see Appendix D,
pages 00-00.
potentially hostile power to gain control of the resources of other nations through military,
economic, or political means. Likewise, to avert future conflicts, all nations needed to be
able to acquire what they needed on open markets. It would fall to America to guarantee
that access while also looking out for its own interests, Truman realized. At least, he
could reflect, it had the atomic bomb to aid in that undertaking.
Stalin, on the other hand, feared that the United States would employ nuclear blackmail
against the Soviet Union, probably because he would have used the same strategy had the
Soviets developed the bomb first. Although Truman hoped that America's possession of
the bomb would pressure Stalin, the Soviet dictator instead initiated a policy of "tenacity
and steadfastness" to avoid appearing weak. And he redoubled his efforts to acquire his
own bombs. Soviet scientists, assisted by spies in America and urged on by Stalin,
worked frantically to catch up. On August 29, 1949, the Soviets exploded their first
atomic bomb in a desert in Kazakhstan. Stalin made no official announcement, but the
United States discovered evidence of the event on September 3. Now, Stalin believed,
the balance of power had been restored. The Americans did not see it that way.
To the United States and its allies, the communist world appeared unified, militant, and
determined to expand its sphere of influence. In contrast, to the diverse Western nations,
preoccupied with recovering from the war and expanding their consumer-driven
economies, America's sole possession of the bomb seemed largely a security blanket
rather than an overt threat against the powerful Soviet Union and its ambitions. To them,
the bomb in Stalin's hands upset the balance and required a response. The arms race
began in earnest.
In reality, of course, the Soviet Union and international communism were not nearly as
monolithic as the Americans feared. In Yugoslavia, Josef Tito ran the country as a Soviet
ally, not as a puppet. In China, Mao Zedong cooperated with Moscow but agreed to
focus on Asia while the Soviets concentrated their influence on Europe. In North Korea,
Kim Il-sung cultivated a cult of personality that rivaled Stalin's and Mao's. In North
Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh launched his long war against the French with Soviet support but
with his own objectives, which included little subservience. These nuances were mostly
lost on Americans, especially when spies were discovered giving nuclear secrets to the
Soviets and anticommunist hysteria reached a fever pitch early in the 1950s.^
Although the Soviet and Western "spheres of influence" had existed before World War II,
the boundaries were redrawn at the end of the conflict. In Europe, Stalin secured a
foothold that he had lacked before. Germany was divided, while Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, and Yugoslavia were Soviet satellites, and communist parties thrived in several
Western European countries. In Asia, mainland China became communist as Chiang
^ Melvyn P. Leffler, "The emergence of an American grand strategy, 1945-1952," in Melvyn P. Leffler and
Odd Ame Westad, eds., TIk Cambridge Histoiy of the Cold War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), 1:67-68, 74-75.
^ David Holloway, "Nuclear weapons and the escalation of the Cold War, 1945-1962," in ibid., 379-380;
Gaddis, Cold War, 34-36.
^ Gaddis, Cold War, 7-8.
^ Gaddis, Cold War, 33-37, 39^0, 43^4.
10
Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan. The United States occupied Korea south of the
38th parallel and the Soviets supported the north. In addition to the new lines mandated
at the end of the war, or the alignments created by occupation or revolution, some nations
chose to align themselves either with the United States or with the Soviet Union. Most of
Western Europe sided with America while Egypt and India, for example, took the path of
"non-alignment."^
In 1946 and 1947, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman gave important speeches that delineated
the lines. Stalin, in Moscow on February 9, 1946, reiterated communist ideology: that
capitalism distributed wealth unevenly; that the capitalist countries were destined to fight
a war among themselves; and that world peace would come with the triumph of
communism. Churchill gave his speech the same year in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5,
and famously declared that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" and that
the Western democracies must stand united against Soviet expansion. A year later, on
March 12, 1947, Truman asked Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey to help those
nations combat the spread of communism, thereby creating the Truman Doctrine of
opposing Soviet expansion.^
Truman earlier had offered the Soviets carrots as well as sticks. On June 14, 1946, the
United States had proposed to the United Nations the creation of an International Atomic
Energy Authority (the Baruch Plan) to control the bomb and other nuclear activities
potentially lethal to human survival. Stalin vetoed the idea. And then, in June 1947,
Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced the European Recovery Program
(Marshall Plan) for the reconstruction of the continent. Eastern Europe was invited to
participate, but Stalin closed that door emphatically when the Czechs expressed interest.
Stalin likewise had earlier refused to join the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank, which were created to strengthen capitalism. He had accepted membership in the
United Nations primarily because the Soviet Union would have a veto in the Security
Council, which he employed against the Baruch Plan.^
The United States and Western Europe implemented the Marshall Plan and linked it to
the democratization of West Germany in the hope of eliminating any possibility of a
return to dictatorship there. Likewise, America imposed its will on Japan, creating a
democracy there under the terms of the occupation and the leadership of General Douglas
MacArthur. In both cases, the United States gave the defeated countries massive aid in
reconstruction to ensure economic growth, employment, and future prosperity, as well as
to preclude the possibility that communism could take root. The Soviets challenged the
West with the blockade of West Berlin beginning on April 1, 1948, but did not impede
airlifts to the city; the blockade ended the next year, on May 12. Residents of East
Germany left for the West by the thousands, an exodus that continued and increased
throughout the next dozen years. '°
' Gaddis, Cold War, 20-22, 37, 124-128.
' Gaddis, Cold War, 94-95.
' Gaddis, Cold War, 30-32, 54-56; Loeber, Building the Bombs, 81; Holloway, "Nuclear weapons," in
Leffler and Westad, Cambridge Histoty, 1:378.
'° Gaddis, Cold War, 33-34, 101-102,1 13.
11
During the years following the end of World War II, Truman and his advisors groped
their way toward a policy regarding the Soviet Union. It became known as "containment,"
a term that diplomat George Kennan first expressed in his famous "long telegram" from
the United States embassy in Moscow in February 1946. In its simplest form,
containment meant confining Soviet expansion to Eastern Europe and encouraging other
nations to support the strategy. By the time Truman left office in 1953, however, he had
moved beyond mere containment to a policy of actively defeating Soviet expansion,
using diplomacy, military and economic assistance, and the threat of the bomb to reach
that objective. In his farewell address, Truman said, "I suppose that history will
remember my term in office as the years when the 'cold war' began to overshadow our
lives. . . . But ... it will also say that in those 8 years we have set the course that we can
win it.""
The Cold War did indeed cast a shadow over the lives of Americans and manifested its
influence in several ways. The rise of virulent anticommunism, the occasional capture of
real communist spies such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the fear that communists
would infiltrate government and the media culminated in the witch-hunts of the House
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and United States Senator Joseph McCarthy.
"McCarthyism," however, became institutionalized to some extent, beyond the antics of
McCarthy himself, for example in the Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director J.
Edgar Hoover, who was obsessed with ferreting out communists both real and imagined.
The hunt for Soviet agents became a theme in popular entertainment, as did the effects —
also real as well as imagined — of exposure to atomic radiation, which generated motion
pictures about giant irradiated monsters rampaging about the planet. Fear of the bomb, as
with fear of communist spies, was part of the background noise of life in the Cold War
for most Americans, however. Few families constructed private bomb shelters, for
example, and aside from occasional "duck and cover" drills, the threat of atomic war only
came into focus periodically when crises erupted.
With regard to nuclear weapons, both Truman and his successor. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower, confirmed the policy of presidential control. Truman, having used the bomb
twice to end the war in the Pacific and to intimidate the Soviets, refused to define the
conditions under which it might be used again, frustrating his policy-makers. Eisenhower
at first encouraged the development of tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons but then
slowly backed away, adopting the view that once employed, such weapons would
inevitably lead to escalation and worldwide devastation. Tactical nuclear weapons, such
as nuclear artillery shells, were nonetheless deployed in Europe beginning in 1953.'^
The fear of the consequences of using nuclear weapons (a fear that Stalin shared but kept
to himself) of course did not impede the race on both sides to develop and improve not
only more powerful atomic bombs but also better defense and delivery systems, including
" Leffler, "American grand strategy," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History, 1:76-89.
'-Ibid., 1:420-441.
Gaddis, Cold War, 54-56, 66-68; Loeber, Building the Bombs, 90-92; Holloway, "Nuclear weapons," in
Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History, 1 :376.
12
aircraft and missiles. The production of nuclear and nonnuclear bomb components was
spread over more than a dozen facilities in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including Los
Alamos, Oak Ridge, Sandia, Hanford, Rocky Flats, and several others.'"
Research on more-powerfiil bombs continued, especially on the so-called hydrogen or
thermonuclear bomb. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Little Boy, was a
relatively simple enriched-uranium bomb. The Nagasaki bomb. Fat Man, was a very
complicated plutonium weapon. Both bombs were exploded through a fission chain
reaction. The potentially far more powerful hydrogen bomb depended on fusion, which
is the joining of two light nuclei to form a single, heavier nucleus — a process that thereby
releases an enormous amount of energy in its explosion. On May 9, 1 95 1 , the United
States tested the world's first thermonuclear bomb in the Marshall Islands. A second
thermonuclear bomb was tested there on October 31, 1952. Because of the logistical
complexity of conducting tests in the Pacific, however, most nuclear weapons were tested
at the Nevada Test Site; the first such test occurred there on January 27, 1951 . Also,
because of the potential risks to civilians and cities should an aircraft with fially
assembled bombs crash in the United States, top-secret teams of "weaponeers" were
trained at Sandia Base (Kirtland Air Force Base), outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, to
fly with the bombs and complete their assembly en route to the target.'^
At the end of World War II, both the West and the Soviets depended on aircraft for
accurate bombing, because rocket development was in its infancy. America's B-29
bomber was the most advanced long-range model of the time. The Soviets manufactured
a near-replica, the Tu-4. As with the bombs themselves, research and development
continued on the construction and testing of ever-more powerful, longer-range bombers.
More important, the research and development of long-range, accurate missiles began,
under the leadership of both American scientists and engineers and former German
adversaries such as Werner von Braun. In anticipation of the threat from Soviet long-
range bombers, American scientists also began to develop advanced radar technologies to
produce an early warning system. Significantly, the United States looked for ways to use
nuclear technology in ways other than for weapons; on June 14, 1952, Truman laid the
keel of USS Nautilus, the first atomic-powered submarine.'^
In the immediate postwar years, the United States reorganized its armed services and the
command structure to coordinate the national defense and the control and deployment of
the new weapons system. On March 21, 1946, the Strategic Air Command, the Tactical
Air Command, and the Air Defense Command were created within the Army Air Forces.
Loeber, Building the Bombs, 81-89, 98-101 . For a selected inventory of manufacturing facilities, see
Appendix D, pages 00-00.
Loeber, Building the Bombs, 1 13-1 16; personal communications, Toni S. Turner to author concerning
"weaponeers" program, in e-mails (Aug. 10, 22, 23, 24, Nov. 1 1, 2010, and Jan. 24, 201 1) and telephone
conversation between author and the late Marion R. Turner, Jr., Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.), on the same subject,
Aug. 23,2010.
'* BDM Corporation, History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1945-1972, 2 vols.
(Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 2005), 1 :9-10; Loeber, Building the
Bombs, 106-109. For a selected inventory of strategic and tactical aircraft sites, see Appendix D, pages
00-00.
13
The Atomic Energy Act, which Truman signed on August 1 , 1 946, created the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC) and transferred the responsibility for nuclear weapons design
and development from military to civilian control. On July 26, 1947, Truman signed the
National Security Act, which created the Department of Defense and the new and
separate departments of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force, as well as the National
Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Numerous reorganizations followed over the next dozen years as interservice
rivalries erupted in competition for the advance weapons systems.
On June 25, 1950, America's new military organization received its first shooting-war
test when Kim Il-sung's North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel in a surprise
invasion of South Korea. The anticommunist Republic of South Korea had been founded
on August 15, 1948, and the Soviets created the Korean People's Democratic Republic in
North Korea a few weeks later, on September 9. Each side sought reunification at the
expense of the other, and South Korean Syngman Rhee had threatened to march north.
The United States, like the Soviet Union, had withdrawn its postwar occupation troops,
but China's Chairman Mao was encouraging Kim to act. When he did, Truman led a
United Nations coalition in defense of South Korea, under command of General Douglas
MacArthur. The general executed a brilliant flank attack, landing forces at Inchon to cut
off the North Korean army, and then he marched north. As he approached the Yalu
River — the border with China — the Chinese army counterattacked and soon had his army
in retreat. When the Chinese attack first occurred, Truman seemed to suggest in a press
conference that nuclear weapons might be used in defense, but he quickly retracted his
words. The war settled into the conventional mode (attack and counterattack with
conventional weapons), and dragged on for two more years. It was the first proxy war, in
which a Soviet satellite lured a Western nation into armed conflict. It would not be the
last.'^
'^ Loeber, Building the Bombs, 79-80, 102-103; BDM, Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 12, 47, 125-126.
For a selected inventory of command and control sites, see Appendix D, pages 00-00.
'^ Gaddis, Cold War, 40-46.
14
Part Two: From Deep Freeze to Detente
On January 20, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated President of the United
States. Less than two months later, on March 5, Josef StaHn died in Moscow. His
successor, Lavrentii Beria, was the notoriously murderous chief of Stalin's secret police.
That the accession of such a man followed the death of an absolute dictator was anything
but reassuring to the West, particularly in the midst of the Korean War. As if to
underscore the elevated risk, on March 15 Soviet MIG-15 fighter jets fired on what the
Americans called a "weather plane" (in reality a B-50 Superfortress reconnaissance
plane) off the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia. Tensions eased slightly,
however, when on July 27 an armistice was signed that ended the fighting in Korea and
created a demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the 38th parallel, thereby largely restoring the
balance that existed before the war.
Almost immediately, however, the nuclear balance was upset (as far as America was
concerned) when the Soviet Union exploded its first thermonuclear bomb a few weeks
after the Korean armistice, on August 12, 1953. Both sides had been apprehensive about
detonating hydrogen bombs because of concern among some scientists that the explosive
power was uncontrollable. Their fears were confirmed on March 1, 1954, when a U.S.
Navy test of a deliverable thermonuclear bomb was held at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall
Islands. An explosive yield of five megatons was predicted; the actual yield was almost
fifteen megatons, a thousand times as large as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The
blast spread fallout for hundreds of miles downwind — enough to kill a Japanese
fisherman — and radiation detectors were set off around the world. If one hydrogen bomb
could produce such a result, what would a thousand do? Winston Churchill went public
with his fear that worldwide annihilation was a distinct possibility; Eisenhower echoed it;
and the Soviet leaders voiced the same fear, but only among themselves.
The end of the Korean War afforded only a brief release fi"om international tensions.
During the 1950s, nationalist and "liberation" movements arose in many countries,
especially those in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia that formerly had either been
colonies of European countries or had been dominated by them. In some cases,
communists led nationalist insurgencies, as in Vietnam, while in other instances nations
such as Egypt chose to align themselves with the Soviet Union without installing a
communist government. The Eisenhower administration suspected that most if not all
nationalist movements were communist-inspired. The administration did not develop an
effective way of harnessing nationalist energy to the Western cause and instead relied on
propaganda campaigns, counterinsurgency efforts, and propping up pro- Western regimes
0 1
to counter Soviet military and economic assistance to Third World nations.^
" Gaddis, Cold War, 59-60, 104-105.
^° Gaddis, Cold War, 62, 64; Loeber, Building the Bombs, 1 13-1 16; Holloway, "Nuclear weapons," in
Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History, 1 :383.
"' Robert J. McMahon, "US national security policy from Eisenhower to Kennedy," in Leffler and Westad,
Cambridge Histoiy, 1 :300-302.
15
Proxy wars and wars of liberation were alternatives to all-out war between the Soviets
and the West. Eisenhower's advisors, while agreeing that an all-out nuclear war would
doom mankind, tried to convince him to plan for limited nuclear warfare, an approach
that the president at first seemed to embrace. Soon, however, he changed his mind and
insisted that the nation plan only for an unlimited nuclear war. He shared Truman's
assessment that the restricted use of tactical nuclear weapons on a conventional
battlefield would quickly escalate. And if the Soviets launched a surprise attack against
the United States, Eisenhower reasoned, they would likely use every weapon at their
disposal. America would fight back in similar fashion ("massive retaliation"), and the
end of civilization would be the result. If that was true, then the only hope of avoiding it
was to prepare for unlimited warfare, which would inflict incomprehensible damage on
each side, regardless of who started it. In such a war there could be no victor: stalemate.
The new strategy was nuclear deterrence, and the Cold War evolved into a war of
22
nerves.
The research and development of bombers and missile systems to deliver guaranteed
obliteration, as well as aircraft and missiles to defend against it, continued apace in both
the Soviet Union and the United States. Because the primary and most sophisticated
bomb-delivery system in existence at the end of World War II was the long-range bomber,
each side sought to construct bigger, faster aircraft capable of delivering more and bigger
bombs. In America, the most advanced bomber at the end of the war was the B-29. By
the mid-1950s, following a succession of more advanced bombers, it had been replaced
by the B-52. The Soviets had their own advanced bombers, the Bear and the Bison, and
when American planners overestimated their numbers, the fear of a "bomber gap" grew
in the United States. Besides strategic bombers, both sides developed and manufactured
ever-more-sophisticated jet fighters and interceptors. Begirming in 1961, the Strategic
Air Command operated Looking Glass, an airborne command center from which the
president could conduct nuclear war and direct the firing of intercontinental ballistic
missiles if the ground-control centers were knocked out.^^
In the United States, research on the first system of intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) dated to 1945. Based on the German V-2 rocket, the first American version
was called Atlas, a liquid-fuel rocket with a 6,000-mile range that could carry an 8,000-
pound nuclear warhead to within 1,000 yards of the target. A series of Atlas missiles, A
through F, were tested and deployed between 1954 and 1962. The missiles were at first
installed above ground on launch pads, but later were maintained and ftieled in
belowground silos and then lifted to the surface for launch. They were installed at Air
Force bases, including Vandenburg (California), Forbes and Schilling (Kansas), Offiitt
and Lincoln (Nebraska), Walker (New Mexico), Plattsburg (New York), Altus
(Oklahoma), Dyess (Texas), Fairchild (Washington State), and Warren (Wyoming). The
Atlas system was phased out by April 1965.^"*
" Gaddis, Cold War, 63-65; Holloway, "Nuclear Weapons," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History,
1:384-386,392.
J' BDM, Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1 :28, 2:32.
^^ Mark Berhow, U.S. Strategic and Defensive Missile Systems, 1950-2004 (Oxford, UK: Osprey
Publishing, 2005), 6, 62. For a selected inventory of Atlas sites, see Appendix D, pages 00-00.
16
The Titan system replaced the Atlas. Development began in 1954 1955, even as the
Atlas rockets were being tested and deployed. Titan's fueling system was simpler and
safer than Atlas's, and the range of later Titan models improved to 9,000 miles. The
rockets were stored and maintained in "super-hardened" silos buried deep underground,
and the operational, guidance, and maintenance facilities were likewise below ground.
There were differences between the arrangement of the facilities for the Titan I and Titan
II systems, however. In the case of Titan I, the missiles and the facilities were close
together; for Titan II, the missiles were spaced at least seven miles apart. The Titan Is,
with a range of 6,300 miles, were installed at Air Force bases in California (Beale),
Colorado (Lowry), Idaho (Mountain Home), South Dakota (Ellsworth), and Washington
State (Larson). The Titan lis, with a 9,000-mile range, were installed at bases in Arizona
(Davis-Monthan), Arkansas (Little Rock), and Kansas (McConnell). The Titan I system
was phased out in 1965; the Titan II system was retired between 1984 and 1987.
Minuteman missiles replaced the Titans. Although the Air Force began research as early
as 1 954 on solid fuels as an alternative to the more- volatile and -complicated liquid-fuel
systems of Atlas and Titan, at first such fuels were not powerful enough to deliver the
heavy payloads to their targets. Later in the decade, as more-powerful solid fuels were
designed and the payloads became lighter, what was called the Minuteman rocket was
tested successfully. In October 1962, the first Minuteman missiles were activated. They
were deployed at Air Force bases, including Whiteman (Missouri), Malmstrom
(Montana), Minot and Grand Forks (North Dakota), Ellsworth (South Dakota), and
Warren (Wyoming). The facilities, including control and maintenance centers and silos,
sprawled over thousands of acres. During the 1960s, Minuteman II and Minuteman III
joined the system; production ended in 1978, but Minuteman missiles remained deployed
until the end of the Cold War.^^
The first American antiaircraft system, operational by 1954 and fully deployed under U.S.
Army control by 1956, was called Nike Ajax. Each radar-directed, liquid-fuel rocket
carried a conventional high-explosive warhead to defend against single Soviet bombers.
It was tested at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, and then the system was
installed around major American cities under U.S. Army control; the first battery was
installed at Fort Meade, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in December 1953. Nikes
also protected Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Hartford, Milwaukee,
New York, Norfolk, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle, as well as other cities.
Each installation consisted of three areas: integrated fire control, launcher and magazine,
and administration. For missile control and tracking, the control area was typically more
than a thousand yards from the launch site. Because most installations were near cities
and not on military posts, typically one or more tracts of land had to be acquired.
Even before the Nike Ajax was deployed, research began in 1953 on the next generation
of Nike missile, dubbed Hercules. Larger and powered with solid fuel, the Nike Hercules
could carry a nuclear device capable of destroying entire formations of Soviet bombers,
Berhow, Missile Systems, 6, 62. For a selected inventory of Titan sites, see Appendix D, pages 00-00.
'^ Berhow, Missile Systems, 6, 62.
17
not just a single aircraft. First tested at White Sands in 1955, the early Hercules had a
range of 50 miles and an altitude capability of 70,000 feet; alterations eventually
increased the range to 90 miles and the altitude to 1 00,000 feet. The conversion of
selected sites from Ajax to Hercules began on June 30, 1958, at Site C-03 in the Chicago
Defense Area, and was completed in 1962. Entirely new Hercules sites were added to
protect Anchorage, Cincinnati, Dallas, Fairbanks, Kansas City, Little Rock, Minneapolis-
St. Paul, Oahu, St. Louis, and Thule Air Base in Greenland, among other locations
including foreign countries. As the anticipated threat changed from Soviet bombers to
ICBMs, however, the missiles became obsolete. By the end of the 1960s, the Hercules
sites had almost all been deactivated. By October 1 , 1 974, all of them had been
97
deactivated.
In the 1950s, yet another interceptor missile was developed, the BOMARC (named for
the two research participants, Boeing and the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center),
under control of the U.S. Air Force. It could carry either conventional or nuclear
warheads, rise quickly to 60,000 feet, and then cruise like a jet aircraft for 230 nautical
miles. The A model was liquid-ftieled; the B model, developed in 1959-1960, was solid-
fueled and had a range of 440 nautical miles. The BOMARC A was deployed in 1959 at
McGuire (New Jersey) and Suffolk County (New York) Air Force bases, and in 1 960 at
Otis (Massachusetts), Dow (Maine), and Langley (Virginia) Air Force bases. The
BOMARC B was deployed beginning in 1 960 at McGuire, Otis, Langley,
Kinross/Kincheloe (Michigan), Duluth (Minnesota), and Niagara Falls (New York) bases,
as well as at North Bay (Ontario) and La Macaza (Quebec). Plans to install them at other
sites were cancelled for the same reason as the deactivation of the Hercules sites:
obsolescence in the face of Soviet missiles as the primary nuclear-weapon delivery
system. The Air Force began closing the BOMARC sites in 1 964; the last one, McGuire,
was closed in 1972.^^
Antiballistic missile (ABM) research began in 1945, as the Allies sought ways to knock
down German V-2 rockets, and then dwindled in importance in America as Soviet
bombers posed the primary threat early in the 1950s. When the Soviets improved the
range and accuracy of their ICBMs by mid-decade, however, ABM research resumed in
earnest. The result was the Nike Zeus, which carried a five-megaton nuclear warhead,
had a range of more than 250 miles, and could ascend to an altitude of 200 miles. It
acquired and tracked its targets using an array of four radars. The U.S. Army first test-
fired the Nike Zeus on December 14, 1961, at Kwajalein Atoll in the southwestern
Pacific Ocean. Concerns over the radar's ability to distinguish between incoming real
and decoy warheads, however, led to the cancellation of the program and the
commencement in 1964 of research into a replacement. Instead of one missile system,
the new system had two: a primary ABM named Spartan and a backup named Sprint,
which was intended to intercept any ICBMs that evaded the Spartan defense. In 1968,
President Lyndon B. Johnson announced plans to deploy the new missiles as the Sentinel
ABM program. The Nixon administration put the plan on hold, then reconfigured it in
1969 as the Safeguard ABM system, and assigned it the mission of protecting American
^ Berhow, Missile Systems, 6, 60. For a selected inventory of Nike sites, see Appendix D, pages 00-00.
^^ Berhow, Missile Systems, 5, 62.
18
ICBM fields. Construction began at two Safeguard sites, Malmstrom (Montana) and
Grand Forks (North Dakota) Air Force bases, and other sites were authorized, but the
Antibalhstic Missile Treaty signed in 1972 halted construction. The treaty allowed each
side two ABM sites, one to protect an ICBM field and the other at the national capital, so
the Grand Forks site was completed while the Washington, D.C., site was never begun.
On October 1, 1975, the Grand Forks site (renamed in 1974 the Stanley R. Mickelson
Safeguard Complex) was declared operational. The next day, however, the U.S.
Congress voted to terminate it; the complex was mothballed in February 1976.
Whether nuclear attack from the Soviet Union came in the form of missiles or bombers or
both, the United States considered the construction of an effective early-warning-radar
system as necessary to provide a chance of defending against such an attack or reducing
its destructive effect. Although numerous radar systems were employed during the Cold
War years, the earliest and most ambitious was the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line, a
string of stations stretching across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland several hundred miles
above the Arctic Circle. Begun in 1957 and essentially completed in 1960, the DEW
Line was supplemented by other, similar lines farther south. To improve communication
among DEW stations and other facilities, the Air Force constructed the White Alice
telecommunications system, which employed new technology including microwave radio
links, at about the same time. Within two decades, satellite communications rendered the
White Alice system obsolete and it was dismantled.^^
Each side spied on the other, determined to assess its adversary's capabilities and plan for
unexpected threats. Because it was difficult for the United States to penetrate the Iron
Curtain, a special aircraft was developed to fly over it: the U-2. Designed to fly at 70,000
feet, well above the limits of Soviet S AMs (surface-to-air missiles), the U-2 carried
advanced photographic equipment. Lockheed manufactured it for the Central
Intelligence Agency, and the first flight took place at Groom Lake (Area 5 1 ) on August 1 ,
1955. The first flight over the Soviet Union occurred on July 4, 1956, and many others
followed over the next four years. Among other discoveries made was the fact that the
"bomber gap" did not exist, and neither did the "missile gap." The Soviets had far fewer
of each delivery vehicle than had been thought. On May 1 , 1 960, however, the Soviets
avenged the discovery of their secrets by shooting down a U-2 with an advanced SAM,
scavenging the wreckage, and capturing the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Khrushchev also
caught the Eisenhower administration in a lie when the State Department first claimed
that the aircraft was a weather flight gone astray: he gleefiilly displayed the wreckage, the
camera, and the photographs that had been taken. A furious Eisenhower was forced to
acknowledge the falsehood. Khrushchev made the most of his propaganda coup, using
the episode to wreck the previously scheduled summit meeting with Eisenhower in Paris
two weeks later.^'
'^ Berhow, Missile Systems, 6, 62; BDM, Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 2:1 79-1 96.
^° BDM, Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1 : 1 29-1 32, 2: 1 38-1 40, 1 50-1 5 1 . For a selected inventory of
defensive radar networks such as DEW, as well as White Alice sites, see Appendix D, pages 00-00 and 00-
00.
'' Gaddis, Cold War, 73-74, 167-168.
19
Throughout the decade preceding the U-2 Incident, the West and the Soviets had taken
steps to strengthen alhances with other nations around the world to foil what they each
saw as the military ambitions of the other side. On April 4, 1949, the United States
joined with Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal to form the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) for mutual defense. Greece, Spain, Turkey, and West Germany
subsequently joined as well. China and the Soviet Union signed a bilateral defense
commitment, the Sino-Soviet Pact, on February 15, 1950. The United States signed a
mutual defense assistance agreement with Vietnam on December 23, 1950. The next
year, on September 8, the United States and Japan signed a treaty allowing an American
military presence in Japan to defend the nation. The United States also negotiated a
mutual security agreement with the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand called the
ANZUS Pact. On September 7, 1954, eight nations formed the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization (SEATO) — the United States, Australia, Britain, France, Pakistan, the
Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand — to oppose Soviet military aggression. In response,
the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact alliance on May 14, 1955, to provide for the
mutual defense of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland,
Rumania, and the Soviet Union. All of these pacts and alliances were essentially for
mutual defense in case of conventional attacks and warfare, since total nuclear war would
obliterate most of the world regardless of alliances. They also failed to deter either side
from taking actions short of general war, particularly in Third World nations. ^^
In addition to weapons, threats, and alliances, both the United States and the Soviet
Union utilized propaganda in various forms to present their messages to the world
(especially the Third World) as well as to their own citizens. Through the United States
Information Agency, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America, the Western message
was broadcast to Soviet radios despite attempts to jam the transmissions, and later, as the
number of televisions in the Soviet Union increased. Western programs were beamed
there. The cultural exchanges that Khrushchev encouraged late in the 1950s worked both
ways. The Soviet message got out (but was taken with a grain of salt in the West), while
Soviet citizens were stunned to see evidence of the higher standards of living, abundant
consumer goods, and so on in the West, in contrast with what their leaders had been
telling them. Motion pictures and novels not only featured the other side's spies as the
enemy, but also played to fears common to each side about the possibility of catastrophic
nuclear war.'^^
By the mid-1950s, tentative and ineffective steps had been taken to reduce the nuclear
threat despite the saber-rattling on both sides. At the first summit conference between
Eisenhower and Khrushchev in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 18, 1955, Eisenhower
proposed the mutual aerial reconnaissance of the United States and the Soviet Union
("open skies"), so each country could keep an eye on the other. Khrushchev rejected the
idea, unaware that the U-2 flights would soon begin and provide the United States with
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 34-35, 108-109; McMahon, "US national security policy," in Leffler and Westad,
Cambridge History, 1 :299-300.
Nicholas J. Cull, "Reading, viewing, and tuning in to the Cold War," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge
History, 2:438-455.
20
the truth about Soviet bombers and missiles anyway. And then, on October 4, 1957, the
Soviet Union shocked the world, in addition to shaking American confidence that the U-
2s were providing all necessary information about Soviet missiles, by launching Sputnik,
the first manmade satellite to orbit the Earth. A month later, on November 3, the Soviets
launched Sputnik 2, which carried a living creature (a dog), into orbit. The fact that the
United States responded quickly, launching Explorer I into orbit on January 3 1 , 1958, did
little to deflate renewed fears of a "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. The Soviets had
changed the strategic equation with Sputnik, opening the door on spying by satellite and,
theoretically, on launching attacks by satellite. On September 13, 1959, the Soviets again
demonstrated their dominance in the "space race" by crashing a spacecraft on the Moon.
In 1960, the United States launched the military reconnaissance satellite Midas II on May
24, and then on July 20 fired the first ballistic missile from a submerged submarine, off
Cape Canaveral, Florida. Nuclear tensions did not appear to be declining, and to many
Americans it appeared that the Soviets had achieved technological superiority over the
United States.^"*
Appearances — over the long haul if not in the short term — were deceiving, however. It
was true that the Soviets, by making an almost superhuman technological effort in one
field at the expense of other undertakings, could achieve remarkable success. But it
could not be sustained. Although both the Soviets and the Americans devoted
considerable resources to weapons and rocket development, the Soviets
compartmentalized their efforts, segregating scientists, declaring certain lines of inquiry
off-limits, and allowing for no cross-pollination of ideas and research. In the United
States, however, research scientists were not only located at government facilities but
also in public universities and corporations. The constraints of national security and
necessary secrecy aside, there was no cover on the pot. Private-sector inventions were
adapted for military use and vice versa. Transistors and computer chips helped achieve
the miniaturization necessary to pack multiple functions in a single satellite, for example.
Great advances in personal computing later in the Cold War were developed by youthful
American hobbyists working in their garages and clubs, which would have been
unthinkable in the Soviet Union. The apparent Soviet supremacy in technology was a
fleeting illusion, and that particular race was over almost before anyone in the United
States realized it.^^
On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States.
Ominously, on December 20, Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Republic of Vietnam (North
Vietnam), organized the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF). On May 1 1,
1961, Kennedy authorized American advisors to aid the South Vietnamese government in
its fight against the NLF. The new president had many other matters to concern him in
addition to a small war half a world away. On April 12, 1961, in one of the last Soviet
technological "firsts," astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth;
Alan B. Shepard quickly became the first American to make a suborbital flight on May 5,
but it was not until February 20, 1 962, that John Glenn became the first American to orbit
'■' Gaddis, Cold War, 68, 72-73.
^^ David Reynolds, "Science, technology, and the Cold War," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge Histoiy,
3:378-399.
21
the Earth. The president soon declared a national goal of sending a man to the Moon and
returning him safely to earth before the end of the decade.
The first non-space-related crisis to hit the new presidency was the Bay of Pigs fiasco in
Cuba on April 17, 1 961 . Authorized by the Eisenhower administration and approved by
Kennedy, the invading force of a thousand CIA-trained Cuban refiigees were supposed to
spark a rebellion to overthrow Fidel Castro, but instead they were killed or captured soon
after they landed at the Bay of Pigs. When Khrushchev and Kennedy met at the Vienna
Summit Conference on June 3, the Soviet leader used the invasion to bully the younger
president, threatening to make the division of Germany permanent (the possibility of
reunification had long been a debating point). On August 13, East Germany closed the
Brandenburg Gate, the principal crossing point between East and West Berlin, in
preparation for constructing the Berlin Wall. Nuclear weapons testing, which both sides
had held in abeyance for some time, resumed in September both in the atmosphere and
underground.
Then, on October 14, 1962, a U-2 flying over Cuba photographed Soviet bases capable of
launching nuclear missiles against U.S. cities, thereby precipitating the Cuban Missile
Crisis. For the next two weeks, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to
nuclear war as the president demanded that the missiles be removed. When Khrushchev
refiised (he considered them a counterbalance to American missiles stationed in Turkey
close to the Soviet border), Kennedy ordered a "quarantine" of shipping to Cuba and
announced that a nuclear attack from the island would be considered a Soviet attack
requiring full retaliation against Russia and the Soviet Union. At Malmstrom Air Force
Base in Montana, a flight of Minuteman ICBMs were placed on operational alert. A
Soviet ship was stopped at sea and turned away, technically an act of war, but the
incident passed quietly. Finally, on October 28, Khrushchev agreed to remove all
missiles from Cuba and Kennedy agreed to make no more Bay of Pigs-type incursions
and (secretly) to remove missiles from Turkey. Most Americans regarded the conclusion
of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a victory for the United States, but the Soviets had secured
some concessions that were important to them as well. The crisis marked a turning point
in the Cold War in that neither superpower ever again took such deliberate risks or came
quite so close to disaster.
Kennedy had claimed during the 1 960 election campaign that a large "missile gap"'
existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. In a way he was right, but the
gap was on the Soviet side, not the American side as he had asserted. The Soviets knew
that the Eisenhower administration knew of their shortfall, as did the Kennedy
administration that followed, and both sides knew that there was a good deal of Soviet
bluffing during the Cuban Missile Crisis. To avoid being at such a disadvantage ever
again, the Soviets launched a massive nuclear weapons buildup and the United States
responded in kind. Over the next decade, America fielded more than a thousand ICBMs,
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 74-75, 129.
" Gaddis, Cold War, 74, 76, 84, 1 14-1 1 5.
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 75-78; Holloway, "Nuclear weapons," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History,
1:394-397.
22
several hundred submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and multiple-warhead
missiles (MIRVs). Eventually, by early in the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved nuclear
parity with the United States. That result, which both sides understood, was that neither
side could survive nuclear war. Given the vast numbers of both strategic and tactical
nuclear weapons, however, it increased the likelihood of accidental or inadvertent
disaster. Nevertheless, both sides continued to press on with their war of propaganda and
low-grade confrontation, especially in the Third World of unaligned or teetering
nations. ^"^
The Kennedy administration adopted a different approach to the Third World and Soviet
adventurism there than had the Eisenhower administration. Taking a more proactive
approach to challenging the lure of Soviet assistance, Kermedy and his advisors
developed the Peace Corps, which sent young, idealistic Americans to Third World
countries to assist in a variety of ways from teaching to helping plant crops to advising
emerging corporations. The goal was to counter Soviet propaganda about "ugly
Americans" and it was largely successful. Less successful, however, was another
Kennedy program, the Alliance for Progress. Using American fiinding, it was designed
to help Third World nations fight poverty and disease, improve infrastructure, and boost
education. Always underfunded, the program fell short of its lofty goals.'*"
Kennedy also modified the previous administration's "massive retaliation" doctrine, with
which he disagreed, preferring to institute a range of nonnuclear options dubbed "flexible
response." Some European allies worried that the new approach signaled that America
was backing away from its mutual defense commitments. Kennedy had to spend time
convincing them that such was not the case.'"
In June 1963, Kennedy visited Berlin and made his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech to
signify American solidarity with the city's residents — and by extension, with the rest of
Europe. In the same month, a teletype link between the White House and the Kremlin,
the Hot Line, was established to improve communications between the adversaries and
lessen the chance of misunderstandings leading to nuclear war. With no one happy about
the pollution and other dangers of aboveground nuclear testing, on October 7 Kennedy
signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, in which the United States, the Soviet Union, and
Britain agreed to ban tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space.
Underground tests were allowed to continue. Then, on November 22, Kennedy was
assassinated in Dallas, Texas. When it was discovered that the assassin, Lee Harvey
Oswald, had lived in the Soviet Union, both the Russians and the Americans wondered if
there was any connection. Much to the Soviets' relief, a check of KGB files revealed that
although Oswald had been approached by the spy agency, he was determined to be too
unstable to be of use, and no attempt had been made to turn him into an agent.'*^
William Burr and David Alan Rosenberg, "Nuclear competition in an era of stalemate, 1963-1975," in
Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History, 2:88-1 1 1 .
''^ McMahon, "US national security policy," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge Histon; 1 :306-307.
^' Ibid., 303-305, 308-309.
" Gaddis, Cold War, 81; Gerald Posner, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK
(NY: Random House, 1993), 54-56.
23
The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, planned to concentrate on domestic issues, such
as civil rights and a "war on poverty," but soon Vietnam dominated foreign affairs.
When North Vietnamese vessels allegedly attacked American ships in the Gulf of
Tonkin, on August 2, 1964, Johnson ordered retaliation. Five days later, the U.S.
Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the president the power to
take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United
States, and to prevent further aggression." The resolution gave Johnson carte blanche to
carry on war with North Vietnam, an opportunity he exploited until the end of his
presidency on the grounds that if South Vietnam fell to the communists other countries in
Southeast Asia would also tumble (the "domino theory" that Eisenhower first expounded
and Kennedy subsequently endorsed).
In the Soviet Union, meanwhile, a silent, bloodless coup took place on October 15, 1964,
when Politburo members Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin ousted Khrushchev from
his leadership position. They cited a list of grievances, including the national humiliation
suffered over the Cuban missile disaster and the embarrassment over the Berlin Wall
(which was obviously constructed to keep East Berliners in, not to keep West Berliners
out), and Khrushchev went quietly. He even professed to be pleased that his removal was
accomplished with no loss of life, unlike what would have happened if a similar attempt
had been made against Stalin a dozen years earlier. It was an odd sort of change in which
to take pride — that the Soviet system and its leaders had become slightly less brutal and
murderous — but Khrushchev's successors would soon reverse the trend as the satellite
nations began to take the change seriously.
Johnson, meanwhile, became bogged down in Vietnam, in a seemingly endless escalation
of troop insertions, bombing campaigns, and inflated enemy "body counts." Determined,
as he put it, not to be the first American president to lose a foreign war, Johnson faced
growing opposition in the United States. On January 30, 1968, however, despite the
bombing and almost half a million American troops in Vietnam supporting or conducting
"search and destroy" missions. North Vietnamese and NLF troops launched the Tet
Offensive all over South Vietnam. Although the result was a communist defeat, the fact
that such an offensive could be launched at all destroyed the administration's
credibility."*"^
Adding to the perceived dangers that America faced, China had joined the nuclear club
on October 1 6, 1 964, with the explosion of its first atomic bomb. It exploded its first
hydrogen bomb on June 1 7, 1 967, not even three years later. Between the two events, in
April 1 966, the Chinese began their Cultural Revolution, sparking several years of
dangerous chaos there. In the spring of 1968, in Czechoslovakia, communist party leader
Alexander Dubcek initiated reforms, including greater freedom of expression, to create
"socialism with a human face." Once unleashed, however, such reforms led to others,
and before long Brezhnev and the other Soviet leaders had had enough. On August 20,
"^ Gaddis, Cold War, 168-170, 173.
"" Gaddis, Cold War. 1 19-120.
'^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 170.
24
Soviet tanks and infantry rolled into Czechoslovakia and crushed the Prague Spring,
while courageous Czechs confronted the armor and soldiers with verbal abuse and signs
proclaiming, among other things, "Hide your mothers and sisters — the Russians are
coming!" (alluding to the mass rapes that Russian soldiers perpetrated in Germany at the
endofWorldWarll).^^
For the United States, 1968 was a year of notable deaths. In Vietnam on March 16, the
My Lai massacre occurred when an American platoon gunned down unarmed villagers
including old men, women, and children, creating a national scandal. On April 4, the
renowned civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in
Memphis, Tennessee. Two months later, on June 5, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was
assassinated in Los Angeles, California, while campaigning for the Democratic
nomination to seek the presidency. Johnson, on March 31, had shocked the nation by
announcing that he would not seek reelection. In Paris on May 1 0, peace talks began
between the United States and North Vietnam but made little progress. Later in the year,
on October 31, Johnson stopped the bombing of North Vietnam and invited South
Vietnam to the peace talks, which continued to drag on."*^
On November 5, 1968, Richard M. Nixon was elected President of the United States. A
brilliant, divisive, and ultimately inscrutable politician, Nixon had first risen to
prominence late in the 1940s as a staunch anticommunist. He had campaigned for the
presidency on a platform of "peace with honor" in Vietnam, assuring the American
people that he had a "secret plan" to bring the war to an end. After taking office,
however, and having inherited more than half a million troops in Vietnam, in March 1 969
he ordered the bombing of Cambodia to foil North Vietnamese attacks. And then, on
June 8, he ordered the first American troops out of Vietnam under a "Vietnamization"
plan. Over the next three years, Nixon mixed bombing halts and starts and troop
reductions as well as the invasion of Cambodia with lengthy, on-and-off negotiations at
the Paris peace talks."*^
In the meantime, American antiwar fervor reached its height in 1 970, especially on
college campuses, but the killings of students at Kent State University and Jackson State
College during protests sobered the nation. The protest movement was part of a larger
Cold War phenomenon called the counterculture. Although antiwar protests were largely
identified with college students, the counterculture permeated American society and
reflected dissatisfaction with aspects of American life ranging from expectations of
domesticity to racial segregation to what many saw as a needless war. Arising in quiet
opposition to the social and political conformity of the 1950s, the counterculture
manifested itself most notably in the women's movement, the Civil Rights movement,
and in the youth-driven antiwar movement (with which the counterculture was most
closely identified). Similar countercultural movements arose in both other Western
countries and in the Soviet Union. Invariably, wherever there was a counterculture there
46
Gaddis, Cold War, 147-148, 185, li
^^Gaddis, Cold War, 169-171.
"^^ Gaddh, Cold War, 172.
25
was also a backlash, sometimes violent. Having gained momentum over more than a
decade, the counterculture did not expire when America's role in Vietnam ended.
On January 27, 1973, the Paris Accords were signed, establishing a ceasefire and a
political settlement to American involvement in the war. The last American combat
forces left the country on March 29, 1973, bequeathing the fight to the Vietnamese. Two
years later, communist forces occupied Saigon on April 30, 1975, as the Americans
hastily evacuated the embassy and left thousands of refugees to the mercy of the
communists. The final scenes, with helicopters evacuating embassy staff members and a
handful of loyal Vietnamese, epitomized the chaos of war. American television showed
the desperate Vietnamese pressing against the embassy gates, being punched as they tried
to climb aboard the last helicopter, and watching sadly as it flew away. Ho Chi Minh did
not live to see the end of the war, having died on September 3, 1969.^°
Ironically, it was Nixon, the staunch anticommunist, who succeeded in toning down for a
time the Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviets. On November 1 7,
1969, the two sides began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). A Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty went into effect on March 5, 1970; it proscribed
the transfer of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear nations and the production of nuclear
weapons in those nations. The negotiations and the nonproliferation treaty did not
prevent the Minuteman III ICBM system from becoming operational in August,
however.^'
Early in 1 972, Nixon stunned his critics when he announced that he would go to China to
negotiate directly with Mao Zedong — something only the anticommunist president could
have done without earning the enmity of his political party. The visit took place February
17-27, 1972, and Nixon promised to withdraw American forces from Taiwan. On May
26, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the SALT I agreement, which
restricted the development of antiballistic missiles and froze the numbers of ICBMs and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) for the next five years.^^
To many Americans, it seemed counterintuitive to limit the number of ABMs to protect
against missile attack. It was, however, a logical extension of the policy of planning for
nothing less than total nuclear war (which had evolved into the policy of Mutual Assured
Destruction under Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara): a nation essentially
defenseless against nuclear attack or retaliation would do everything possible to avoid
nuclear war. With both the Soviet Union and the United States in the same posture, so
the thinking went, the possibility of such a war was near zero.^^
"*' Jeremi Suri, "Counter-cultures: the rebellions against the Cold War order, 1965-1975," in Leffler and
Westad, Cambridge History, 2:460-481.
50
51
^° Gaddis, Cold War, 172-173.
Gaddis, Cold War, 199-200.
" Gaddis, Cold War, 149-152, 200.
"Gaddis, CoWffar, 80-81.
26
On May 29, 1972, Nixon and Brezhnev signed an agreement on the "basic principles of
detente,'' the philosophy put forward to justify the new arrangements. Detente essentially
was the acceptance of the political status quo in the world, especially in Eastern Europe,
and the commitment on the part of both sides to continue to work together to reduce
nuclear tensions. It also recognized reality, in that for all of America's objections to the
way in which the Soviets enforced their will in Eastern Europe, the United States had
never taken any action to put a stop to it. Some in the United States, however, were not
comfortable with silence in the face of Soviet oppression, even at the price of stability.
Senator Henry M. Jackson and Congressman Charles Vanik, for example, secured
passage of an amendment to a trade bill worked out with the Soviets, denying them most-
favored-nation status because of their limitations on emigration. Angered, the Soviets
cancelled the deal. Although detente would be the dominant approach to American-
Soviet relations for most of the rest of the decade, the road would be full of such
bumps.^^
On November 7, 1972, Nixon was reelected president. Over the next year and a half, a
minor burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate
apartment complex in Washington would grow into perhaps the worst constitutional
crisis the nation had faced since the Civil War. On March 1, 1974, a Washington grand
jury returned an indictment against seven former presidential aides and named Nixon an
"unindicted co-conspirator." The House Judiciary Committee opened presidential
impeachment hearings on May 9; the existence of secret Oval Office tape recordings was
revealed, triggering a battle over access to them; the president defended himself on
national television, famously declaring, "I am not a crook"; and on July 27 the House
Judiciary Committee voted in favor of impeachment. To avoid the humiliation of a trial
and likely conviction and removal from office, Nixon endured the humiliation of being
the only president in American history to resign. On August 9, 1 974, he left the White
House and Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office as president."^
The Soviets were both puzzled and stunned, like many other foreigners, by this turn of
events. What perhaps amazed them even more was that the nation had not collapsed into
chaos during the crisis. Ford put the country's sigh of relief into words when he declared,
"Our long national nightmare is over." The Cold War, however, continued.
Gaddis, Cold War, 180-184.
27
" Gaddis, Cold War, 155-158.
Part Three: The End of the Wall
The policy of detente continued from 1972 until the end of the Ford administration in
1976. On the surface, detente smoothed the way for cooperation in such matters as the
space exploration, exemplified on July 17, 1975, when American and Soviet astronauts in
Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft linked up in orbit. Negotiations also continued between the
Soviets and the United States not merely to limit the spread and deployment of nuclear
weapons but also to begin reducing their numbers in a very real way. The status quo
remained seemingly strong, with the Soviet leaders dealing with their internal issues in
their own way despite periodic protests from human-rights supporters on the outside.
Inside the Soviet Union, however, the structure supporting the facade slowly began to
crumble.
Communism had long claimed historical infallibility and the role of supreme supporter of
workers' rights. The actions of the Soviet leaders from the 1950s and thereafter, however,
began to undermine those claims. Perhaps this process began on February 25, 1956,
when Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his crimes — the enslavement and murder
of millions — in detail to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Khrushchev
took this action, which shocked the delegates to their cores, to justify party reforms, but
his words created problems for himself and for the international communist movement.
How could a party that claimed infallibility be subject to reform? The contradictions
between dogma and reality became ever more obvious over the years: the crushing of the
Hungarian uprising in 1956, the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, the notorious
Gulag that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exposed to the world in the 1 970s, the blatant lies of
Soviet leaders during conflicts with the West, and the rising chorus of dissent within the
Soviet Union all contradicted, to say the least, the official image of the workers' paradise.
The Soviet Union, no less than any other form of government, relied ultimately in the
faith of the governed to sustain it. Infallibility is a high standard to live up to; when the
failure to attain it becomes obvious even to the most ardent supporters, structural collapse
becomes almost inevitable.^^
The contrasts between Western and Soviet rhetoric and ideals manifested themselves
most clearly, perhaps, in the consumer-oriented economies that the centrally controlled
Soviet countries lacked. Derided — often with justification — as mere crass materialism,
consumerism was the engine that powered the economies of the United States and most
other countries outside the Soviet bloc. Consumerism was not just a desire for more
things, but for things that freed people from drudgery, that encouraged a more interesting
life, that offered more choices, and that promoted leisure activities. While the West
could have both guns and butter thanks to its diverse, capitalist economies, the Soviets
could only choose one or the other. Soviet consumers, therefore, always got the short end
of the budget stick. No amount of propaganda could offset the obviously lower Soviet
standard of living, which became all the more obvious when travel and cultural-exchange
restrictions were eased. Even in Moscow, the most prosperous city in Russia, residents
carried plastic bags at all times, and when they saw a long line outside an official Soviet
shop, they only asked what was for sale after they joined the line. Usually it was some
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 84-87, 263-264.
28
product that had not been available yesterday, and would not be available tomorrow, or
even in a few hours. In contrast. Western consumers faced an overabundance of choices
and products that even many of them regarded as ridiculous excess. Late in the Cold War,
Russian president Boris Yeltsin visited a standard American supermarket. The plenitude
of cans and boxes on the shelves so stunned him that he later wrote that he felt "sick with
despair for the Soviet people." The Soviets might achieve parity with, or even surpass
the United States in numbers of missiles, but they would never be able to meet the
demands of their own expanding and complaining consumer society. This was just one
of the disparities between Soviet mythology and reality that contributed to growing
dissatisfaction with the regime and contributed largely to the eventual collapse of the
Soviet Union."
This dissonance and anger developed slowly, but it gained momentum in August 1975
with the signing of the Helsinki Accords. The Soviet Union had, since 1 954, sought
almost annually some official recognition by the West of the division of Europe, and the
resulting Soviet sphere of influence there, that had come into effect at the end of World
War II. The West, particularly the United States, routinely rebuffed the Soviet demand
but under detente the Western refusal to recognize reality seemed futile. Europe was
divided, after all, and seemed likely to remain that way. The Western nations, however,
did not make it too easy for Brezhnev to get his document signed; they insisted on adding
clauses about the peacefial change of international borders, the joining and leaving of
alliances, the promotion of Western-Soviet contact through cultural exchanges (including
music concerts), and, to some Soviet consternation, the recognition of human rights in
accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. On reflection, however,
Brezhnev assumed he could ignore those clauses when it came to the Soviet Union's
internal affairs, just as he ignored similar statements in the Soviet constitution. They
were mere words, after all, and the Soviets had always been quick to assert that for all of
America's alleged devotion to human rights, the record was tainted by Native American
genocide (both physical and cultural), the failure to grant fiill civil rights to minorities
until forced to do so, and the support of Third World tyrants who oppressed their peoples.
So, he signed the Helsinki Accords, little realizing that they would also lead to exposing
Soviet economic failures and human rights hypocrisies to the world. Within the Soviet
Union, however, there were those who took the mere words seriously. They included
Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, and many others who were willing to risk
their necks to hold their leaders accountable. Brezhnev had finessed himself into a trap.'
The situation, from the Soviet point of view, soon got worse. On October 16, 1978,
white smoke floated from a stovepipe above the roof of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican
City, signaling the election of a new pope to take the place of Pope John Paul, who had
recently died. When the new pope emerged onto a balcony overlooking St. Peter's
Square, the crowd and the world gasped. His given name was Karol Wojtyla, and he was
a Polish cardinal, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, the first Slavic pope, and the
" Emily S. Rosenberg, "Consumer capitalism and the end of the Cold War," in Leffler and Westad,
Cambridge History, 3:489-513.
'^ Gaddis, Cold War, 186-191; Cull, "Reading, viewing, and tuning in," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge
History, 2:455-458.
29
first pope whose native land was a communist country. To honor his two immediate
predecessors, he took the name John Paul II. He also soon took much of the world by
storm with his charisma and charm, his sense of humor and wit, his brilliant intellect and
common touch, his fierce love of Poland, and the sly and subtle ways in which he
demolished what little remained of communist credibility.'
In Moscow, Brezhnev and the Politburo were shocked, outraged, and frightened by what
had happened — a pope from officially atheistic Poland! Their fears only increased when
John Paul II made his first visit home to Poland in June 1979. At every stop he made, the
crowds increased from the hundreds of thousands to the millions (between two and three
million in Krakow), chanting his name and proclaiming "We want God!" The contrast
between the joyfijl crowds in Poland and the typical Soviet "spontaneous" assembly of
dour party functionaries could not have been more obvious. The images were broadcast
around the world, along with the pope's message to all mankind, within and without the
Soviet Union: "Be not afraid." This was the message most devastafing to the Soviet
authorities, for by this time they had little with which to prop up their system except fear.
The pope's message not only gave moral support to the Solzhenitsyns, Sakharovs, and
Havels of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, it also gave hope and courage to the
billions of people who lived under other forms of tyranny around the world. The age of
the tyrant was coming to an end, he declared, and the inevitable fall of the Soviet Union
would foreshadow similar collapses in other nations.
There were still reasons for concern if not fear, however. The end of detente arrived
about a year and a half after Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president in January 1977.
First, he announced that foreign aid from the United States would be dependent on the
applicant nation's commitment to human rights. Then, on May 30, 1978, he
recommended that NATO increase and modernize its military resources, signaling the
end of detente — the status quo — through this shift in policy. In addition, the deployment
of tactical nuclear missiles in Europe continued, putting additional pressure on the
Soviets to respond with improved weapons systems of their own. In the Soviet Union,
however, not only had technology not kept pace with the West, but the country was also
facing near-bankruptcy after years of mismanagement of the centrally planned economy.
On June 18, 1979, Carter and Brezhnev signed the SALT II agreement to limit long-range
missiles and bombers. In December, NATO announced the deployment of intermediate-
range nuclear weapons in Europe to counter Warsaw Pact SS-20 missiles, again putting
pressure on the Soviet Union. Brezhnev had other matters weighing on him, however,
such as the ongoing rebellion in Afghanistan against Soviet control. On December 20,
the Soviets invaded the country, beginning a multiyear, ultimately fruitless war
reminiscent of the American involvement in Vietnam. In protest, Carter cancelled
American participation in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and the U.S. Senate refused to
ratify the SALT II treaty. Under detente. Carter would have reacted to the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan with words of objection, not direct actions.^'
^'^ Gadd\s, Cold War, 192.
*° Gaddis, Cold War, 192-195.
^' Gaddis, Cold War, 202-203, 210-211.
30
In August and September 1980, an electrician named Lech Walesa organized an
independent trade union at the Gdansk shipyard in Poland. As in the case of the election
of Karol Wojtyla as pope, this event shook the Soviet leadership. Why would there be a
need for a trade union if the communists were the protectors of workers? The Soviet
leadership responded by trying to crush the trade-union movement, which Walesa and the
members had named, ironically, Solidarity (communists continually expressed their
"solidarity" with oppressed workers in capitalist countries). Protests and clashes with the
police arose, and — again ironically — workers in capitalist countries expressed their
solidarity with the Gdansk shipyard laborers by marching with Solidarity banners held
high. After the Soviet leaders had convinced General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's new
president, that they were about to intervene, he declared martial law and arrested
Solidarity's leaders including Walesa on Decemberl3, 1981.
Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, in January 1 98 1 Ronald Reagan had been inaugurated
President of the United States. A movie actor who had recently served as governor of
California, Reagan was notable for single-minded anticommunism tempered by a sunny,
optimistic disposition and a folksy demeanor. Many critics considered him an
intellectual lightweight, but they underestimated his determination and stubbornness.
Like Pope John Paul II, Reagan exuded charisma and was a very effective and rousing
speaker.^^
Although the foreign press liked to portray him as a "cowboy," or an independent, tough-
talking gunslinger, in fact Reagan did not operate alone against the Soviets. Pope John
Paul II, Lech Walesa, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and Solzhenitsyn and
Havel, among many others, had been at the forefront of the movement long before
Reagan was inaugurated president. As the leader of the United States, however, he
immediately assumed a position of strategic importance. He quickly forged strong ties
with Thatcher; they shared similar, conservative political philosophies, but they also
found that they thought alike when it came to dealing with the Soviets.^'*
What was missing, however, was a Soviet counterpart with whom to negotiate. Brezhnev
was becoming increasingly feeble and died on November 10, 1982. Yuri Andropov, the
cold and aloof former head of the KGB, succeeded Brezhnev as General Secretary of the
Soviet Union two days later. Andropov fell ill and died in a Soviet hospital on February
9, 1984, and Konstantin Chemenko took over on February 13. The decrepit, aged
Chemenko died on March 10, 1985. Reagan, exasperated, wondered aloud how he could
ever deal with the Soviet leaders when they kept dying on him.^^
The Soviet general secretaries were not the only leaders who faced death early in the
1980s. Barely two months into his first term as president, Reagan was shot by John
Hinkley, a deranged man, on March 30, 1981, in Washington. The president survived,
thanks to successflil surgery. A month and a half later, on May 13, Mehmet Ali Agca
"- Gaddis, Cold War, 196-197, 218.
^' Gaddis, Cold War, 217-218.
'' Gaddis, Cold War, 223.
" Gaddis, Cold War, llA, 228.
31
shot Pope John Paul II as he rode in his "popemobile" among the faithful in St. Peter's
Square. The pope also survived, and the assassination attempt was quickly linked to
Bulgarian intelligence. Soviet complicity was strongly suspected, given the Soviet
leaders' fear of the pope, but never proved.
Thatcher and Reagan soon found themselves with a Soviet leader with whom they could
do business — Mikhail Gorbachev, who succeeded Chemenko on March 13, 1985.
Middle-aged, well-educated, articulate, bright, and friendly, Gorbachev charmed Vice
President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State George Schultz when they met him
at Chemenko' s fiineral. Reagan met Gorbachev for the first time in November 1985 at
the Geneva summit conference and also liked him, although the summit ended
inconclusively over one of Reagan's ideas, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which
he offered to share. ^
Reagan first proposed SDI in a speech on March 23, 1983, thereby essentially repudiating
the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction. Instead, he proposed using satellite,
computer, and laser technology to destroy ICBMs immediately after launch. If such a
system were employed, Reagan said, nuclear missiles would be obsolete and should be
scrapped. He was proposing, in other words, the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.
In the Kremlin, Andropov and the Politburo scoffed publicly but privately were panicked.
Although the Soviet Union had caught up with the United States in the production of
ICBMs, the country was hopelessly behind in computer technology and the sciences that
might enable it to counter SDI. Andropov became convinced that Reagan's proposal was
merely a prelude to a surprise nuclear strike, and when a Korean Air Lines passenger jet
strayed into Soviet territory on September 1, 1983, the nervous Soviets shot it down.
Later, in November, when NATO forces carried out their annual fall military exercises
(Able Archer 83) but at a higher level of leadership participation than usual, Andropov
again convinced himself that a nuclear attack was imminent and put the country on alert.
It was the closest brush with nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Gorbachev learned that Reagan was sincere in his determination to implement SDI and
eliminate the nuclear stockpile. Gorbachev also believed that Reagan and the United
States would never launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Another turning point in
Gorbachev's thinking occurred on April 26, 1986 — an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant that spread contamination over a wide area. Investigations showed that the
disaster was partly the result of incompetence, shoddy work, and carelessness, further
convincing Gorbachev that fundamental changes were necessary (glasnost, or publicity,
and perestroika, or restructuring) within the Soviet Union if there was to be any hope of
retaining the people's faith in the communist system. When Reagan and Gorbachev met
at the next summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, both men seemed eager to
find a way to eliminate the nuclear-weapons threat. The meeting ended unhappily,
however, when Gorbachev kept pressing Reagan to confine SDI to the research
laboratories instead of developing and deploying it, and Reagan refused. Negotiations
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 218-219, 222.
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 229-233.
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 226-228.
32
continued nonetheless, and at the next summit meeting, in Washington in December
1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty eliminating intermediate-range nuclear
weapons in Europe.
Reagan not only pressed for the abolition of nuclear weapons, he also urged Gorbachev
to relax restrictions and increase freedoms in the Soviet Union. Most famously, in a
speech at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, Reagan pointed at the
Wall and demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Gorbachev ignored the
request, but he was at the time letting the world know that he would not oppose change
with the use of force. In a speech to the United Nations on December 7, 1988,
Gorbachev denounced force or even the threat of force as instruments of foreign policy.
Fundamental change indeed had come to the Soviet Union.
In China, however, the situation was different. Mao Zedong had died on September 9,
1976, setting off a long struggle for the succession. The eventual winner of that struggle,
by the end of 1978, was Deng Xiaoping, a Chinese Communist Party leader whom Mao
had purged several times. The resilient Deng, once in power, praised many of Mao's
accomplishments, including making China a great power and opening relations with the
United States, but repudiated the disastrously managed central economy. Instead, Deng
embraced capitalism while maintaining the other elements of Mao's legacy. As a result,
the Chinese economy had become one of the largest in the world by the time Deng died
in 1997. His determination to restrict freedoms in the political arena, however, led to the
Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing on the night of June 3-4, 1989. Students had
been demonstrating there for more democracy — Gorbachev had even paid them a visit
when he was in the city — but Deng finally had seen enough and ordered a brutal military
crackdown. An unknown number of students were killed. As tanks rumbled out of the
square on June 5, their work accomplished, a man carrying two shopping bags walked
into the street and blocked their path. For several moments, the man harangued the tank
commander before bystanders hustled him away. A video camera in a nearby hotel
captured the episode, which was soon broadcast around the world and became an iconic
image of individual courage.^'
Individuals were continuing to have an effect in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as
well. After George H. W. Bush succeeded Reagan as president on January 20, 1989, he
and Gorbachev eyed each other warily, with Bush concerned that the Soviet leader's
disarmament promises might be a sham. Over time they grew to trust each other,
although there was never the warmth between them that Gorbachev and Reagan shared.
In Hungary, the government dismantled the fence along the border with Austria, and soon
East Germans began flowing through Hungary to the West. In Poland, Jaruzelski
recognized Solidarity and allowed its candidates to participate in an election of delegates
to a new bicameral legislature. Solidarity won all the seats it contested in the lower
*' Gaddis, Cold War, 231-234.
™ Gaddis, Cold War, 235-236.
^' Gaddis, Cold War, 242-243.
33
house and lost only one in the upper house. In each case, Gorbachev made it clear that
the countries were on their own; there would be no Soviet intervention.
The East German government, under the hard-line communist ruler Erich Honecker, was
extremely displeased over the Hungarian situation. When Gorbachev attended a parade
during the East German government's fortieth anniversary celebrations on October 7-8,
1989, however, the marchers cheered him, not Honecker. On October 9, in Leipzig,
antigovemment demonstrations almost resulted in a version of Tiananmen Square until
an orchestra leader stepped from the crowd and persuaded the security forces to leave.
Honecker resigned on October 1 8 and his successor, Egon Krenz, decided to ease the
pressure by relaxing but not eliminating the rules for travel to the West. On November 9,
a government official misread the hastily drafted decree at a press conference and
announced instead that East Germans who wished to leave could do so at any border
crossing, effective immediately. Seemingly within minutes, crowds assembled at the
crossings, including along the Berlin Wall, where the guards had no instructions. Finally,
the guards at one crossing took it on themselves to open the gate, and East Berliners
poured through into West Berlin. That night, television viewers around the world were
stunned to see East and West Germans atop the Wall, dancing on it and attacking it with
hammers, while the guards stood by, machine guns slung on their shoulders, and merely
watched.
Thus began the cascade. On November 10, 1989, the ruler of Bulgaria since 1954
announced that he was stepping down, and the communist party there began negotiating
with the opposition for free elections. On November 1 7, prodemocracy demonstrations
erupted in Prague, and within weeks Alexander Dubcek was installed as chairman of the
national assembly and Vaclav Havel was president of Czechoslovakia. In Romania, the
brutal dictator Nicolai Ceausescu decided to follow Deng's example and on December 17
ordered his troops to gun down demonstrators. When he addressed a throng of supposed
supporters on December 21, they booed him off the podium. He and his wife attempted
to flee, were captured and tried for murder, and were executed on Christmas Day. The
end of East Germany came the next year, when the two Germanys were reunified on
October 3, 1990. On February 19, 1991, Lithuania voted to become an independent
nation.^'*
In July 1991, Bush arrived in Moscow to sign the START I treaty — the strategic arms
reduction treaty that had been the subject of multiple negotiations and meetings since
Reagan had first proposed it in 1983. Gorbachev, exhausted, left the capital early in
August for his annual Crimean vacation. On August 1 8, his communication links were
severed and a delegation arrived at his dacha to inform him that he had been deposed.
Over the next few days, however, the conspirators discovered to their chagrin that they
had neglected to secure the support of the police and the army, that the rest of the world
was reftising to take them seriously, and that Russian president Boris Yeltsin had greater
^' Gaddis, Cold War, 239-241.
" Gaddis, Cold War, 244-246.
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 246-247, 249-252.
34
power than they did, or that Gorbachev had, for that matter. When Yehsin climbed on a
tank in Moscow to announce that the coup was a failure, it failed
75
Yeltsin abolished the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, confiscated its property,
disbanded Gorbachev's Congress of People's Deputies, and recognized the independence
of the Baltic States and several other republics. On December 8, 1991, Yeltsin signed an
agreement with the Ukraine and Byelorussia to form the Commonwealth of Independent
States and called Bush to inform him. Gorbachev protested, but then on Christmas Day
he acknowledged reality by signing a decree that transferred the Soviet nuclear supply to
Russia and abolished the Soviet Union. Without a pair of adversaries to confront each
other any longer, the Cold War truly was over.^^
In the United States, the trend toward "standing down" in response to Gorbachev's
concessions had begun the previous year. On July 24, 1 990, the Strategic Air
Command's Looking Glass emergency airborne command post was taken off continuous
alert. Beginning September 18, 1991, all Strategic Air Command bombers and the
Minuteman II missiles were likewise removed from alert status. Between 1 99 1 and 1 997,
the Minuteman II silos were deactivated and imploded. Minuteman Ills will remain
operational until 2020.
At the beginning of the Cold War and the nuclear age, the chances that mankind would
survive the next half-century appeared slim. The most-devastating war in human history
had ended with the creation of the greatest weapon ever known. Its effects frightened
everyone on either side of the Iron Curtain, because everyone knew that weapons were
made to be used and because never yet had the fear of a weapon, much less human
willpower, restrained men from waging war. The weapon itself was viewed and
described in apocalyptic terms: "Now I am become death, the shatterer of worlds";
doomsday; the end of the world. Many scientists and ethicists believed that people had
created something that outstripped their ability to control it. Science run amok became a
7R
recurring theme in popular literature, especially in American motion pictures.
In addition, two diametrically opposed political systems each controlled the bomb and
half the world. On the one side in the early years stood the United States and its allies,
seemingly disorganized, with a variety of capitalist governments based on the will of
their peoples. On the other side, under one of the most bloody-handed tyrants in history,
stood the Soviet Union and its supposedly monolithic communist empire. Each was
engaged in a struggle for domination, each wished for the end of the other, and each
waged a relentless race for arms superiority over the other. The result, in both countries,
was the expenditure of enormous amounts of national treasure to construct complicated
systems of aggression and defense. Each side used subterfuge to create uncertainty and
fear to keep the other side guessing. The chances of a misstep that would be fatal to both
sides seemed almost guaranteed.
^^ Gaddis, Cold War, 256.
^'' Gaddis, Cold War, 256-257.
^' Berhow, Missile Systems, 6, 63.
'* Loeber, Building the Bombs, 35.
35
And yet, it did not happen. In part this was because neither side was controlled by
nihilists. Each wanted to outlive the other, knowing that any attempt to destroy the other
would lead to self-destruction. Even when the threats seemed the greatest, each side trod
carefully, not daring to push the other too far. Because luck (sometimes bad luck) can
trump skill, however, leaders on both sides came to understand that the equation had to
change, that a way had to be found out of the armament thicket that had grown out of
control.^
In the end, the Cold War ceased to exist in part because rational leaders became
convinced that what people had created they could also change. Pope John Paul II
encouraged millions, regardless of national borders, to reject the idea that fear and
brutality must always dominate the human spirit, and the people of Eastern Europe rose
to his challenge. Ronald Reagan proposed a defense system that would logically lead to
abolishing nuclear weapons altogether — an idea that even the Soviets could accept with
some relief And Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of Earth's last great empire, decided to
dismantle that empire in the name of sanity and human survival. And after almost five
decades of living under the threat of nuclear annihilation, all of this had been
accomplished without the explosion of a single atomic bomb. In a sense, then, although
the Cold War ended with the bankruptcy of communism and the dismemberment of the
Soviet Union, among mankind there were no losers.
Since then, debates have raged over just what brought the end of the arms race, the
seemingly sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. Some have
argued that Reagan's SDI and his hard-line approach to communism turned the tide, but
SDI was confined to the drawing board and Reagan moderated his approach considerably
after 1983. Others give most of the credit to Gorbachev and his reforms, which, once
unleashed, took on a life of their own. Pope John Paul II and his spiritual leadership, as
well as the boldness of Dubcek and Walesa and Havel, deserve their due. Then there
were the nameless, courageous millions who marched, faced down tanks, broke through
borders and demolished walls, put their lives on the line and told their erstwhile Soviet
leaders that it was all over, that they no longer were believed, that they had no authority.
Perhaps the answer is that all of these people and factors together created the perfect
storm that blew down the Iron Curtain, rendered nuclear war between the powers
impossible except by accident, and brought the Cold War to an end.^*^
There was hope, in the United States at least, of a "peace dividend" — that the end of the
Cold War would enable the nation to refocus its treasure on domestic programs instead of
weapons systems. It was not to be. The Cold War ended but not without consequences.
Fifty years of fighting proxy wars that resulted in millions of deaths, interfering in the
affairs of other nations, propping up tyrants for temporary and questionable gains,
shuffling the distribution of political power, raising and then dashing hopes, suppressing
dissent, creating powerful groups and cliques devoted to their interests at the expense of
^' Gaddis, Cold War, 262.
Beth A. Fischer, "US foreign policy under Reagan and Bush," in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge Histoty,
3:267-288.
36
others — all practices that each side was guilty of at one time or another — left a legacy of
resentment and frustration in many countries around the world. Many of our current
conflicts, such as the 9/1 1 attacks and the resulting "war on terror," have their roots in the
Cold War and can be considered as among its legacies.
37
Time Line: The Cold War
1945
May 7: German military leaders surrender to Western Allies at Rheims, France.
May 8: German military leaders surrender to Soviets and Western Allies at Berlin,
Germany.
July 3: Allied troops complete occupation of Berlin.
July 16: United States explodes first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in a
test code-named TRINITY.
July 17-August 2: President Harry S Truman, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and
Clement Atlee, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin meet in Potsdam and refine postwar
division of Europe.
August 6: U.S. drops first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
August 9: U.S. drops second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
August 14: Japan surrenders.
August 26: U.S. announces its intention to occupy Japanese-held Korea south of the 38th
parallel; Soviet Union to occupy the north.
September 2: Ho Chi Minh's troops seize power in Hanoi and proclaim an independent
Vietnam.
September 22: French forces return to Vietnam.
November 5: Communist Party wins only 17 percent of the vote in Hungarian election.
Stalin moves to eradicate opposition and consolidate Soviet position there.
November 29: Yugoslavia becomes a federated republic under Marshal Josef Tito.
1945-1946: America and Great Britain withdraw their troops from Iran; the Soviet Union
does not.
February 28: Secretary of State James F. Byrnes introduces new "get tough with Russia"
policy at Overseas Press Club, New York.
March 5: Winston Churchill, in a speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, says
an "iron curtain" has descended across Europe.
March 21: Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, and Air Defense Command
are created within the Army Air Forces.
June 14: Bernard Baruch presents Truman's international atomic energy control plan to
United Nations. Plan would place fissionable materials under control of a U.N. agency
equipped with inspection powers and exempt from the great-power (Security Council)
veto. Soviet Union objects to American domination of any U.N. agency and is unwilling
to surrender its veto or accept inspection within the Soviet Union.
July 1: U.S. atomic bomb tests, using the Nagasaki-type implosion bomb, held at Bikini
Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands.
August 1 : Truman signs Atomic Energy Act, creating Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) and transferring nuclear weapons design and development from military to
civilian control.
December 20: Viet Minh forces clash with French forces in beginning of 8-year French
Indochina war.
1947
March 12: Truman asks Congress to support "free peoples who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures" (Truman Doctrine). Congress
grants $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey to defend against Communist guerrillas.
38
April 16: Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War" in a speech in South Carolina
May 31: Communist government takes over Hungary.
June 5: Secretary of State George C. Marshall calls on European nations to draft plan for
European economic recovery, offering aid in planning and "later support" (Marshall
Plan). Eastern Europe walks out of initial Paris meeting at Soviet behest. The following
March, Congress votes to fund the Marshall Plan to aid 1 6 European nations.
July: George F. Kennan, writing anonymously in Foreign Affairs, articulates America's
policy to block peacefully the expansion of Soviet political and economic influence into
vulnerable areas around the world ("containment).
July 26: National Security Act creates Department of Defense and several new agencies,
including the National Military Establishment with three separate departments of the
Army, the Navy, and the new U.S. Air Force, National Security Council (NSC), Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
October 29: The U.N. authorizes the creation of the State of Israel.
December 30: Romania's monarchy is replaced by a communist regime.
1948
During the year, Truman decides that nuclear weapons shall be under the direct control of
the president; for the first time, battlefield commanders are denied the right to decide to
deploy a weapon.
February 25: Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.
March 17: Brussels Treaty, signed by Belgium, Britain, France, Holland, and
Luxembourg, creates an Atlantic regional mutual-defense pact, the Brussels Pact, in part
a response to the Czechoslovakian crisis.
April 1: Soviet Union blockades all highway, river, and rail traffic into Western-
controlled West Berlin to force the Western powers out of Berlin. The West responds by
airlifting supplies to West Berlin beginning June 2 1 and counter-blockading East
Germany. The Soviet blockade ends after 321 days.
May 14: Israel declares independence. Five Arab states invade Israel in the first Arab-
Israeli war.
July 26: Truman issues executive order desegregating the armed forces.
August 3: Whitaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of having been a key member of the
communist underground in Washington.
August 15: Republic of South Korea is founded.
September 9: The Korean People's Democratic Republic is founded in North Korea.
1949
January 29: Foreign aid policy announced by Truman.
April 4: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States create the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) for mutual defense. Greece, Spain, Turkey, and West Germany
later join. In 1955, Soviet Union forms competing Warsaw Pact.
May 12: Berlin blockade ends.
August 29: The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb in a desert in Kazakhstan.
September 3: During a Japan-to-Alaska reconnaissance flight, an Air Force RB-20 on
patrol off Siberia detects evidence of the Soviet nuclear test.
39
September 21: German Federal Republic established as Allied High Commission
relinquishes control of the administration of the American, British, and French
occupation zones.
September 23: Truman announces that the Soviet Union had exploded an atomic bomb
sometime during the latter half of August.
October 1: People's Republic of China is established.
December 7: The Chinese Nationalist government retires to Taipei, Taiwan.
1950
January 21: Alger Hiss convicted of perjury.
January 31: Truman approves the development of the hydrogen bomb.
February 7: The U.S. recognizes the state of Vietnam and the kingdoms of Laos and
Cambodia.
February 9: Senator Joseph P. McCarthy delivers speech to Republican Women's Club
of Ohio County, Wheeling, West Virginia, in which he claims to have a list of "known"
Communists "making policy" in the State Department.
February 15: Sino-Soviet Pact creates a bilateral defense commitment, settles historic
territorial issues between China and the Soviet Union, and initiates modest program of
Soviet aid to China.
April: NSC reappraises America's strategic position and redefines the Cold War as
military rather than political, postulating a Soviet "design for world domination." NSC
68 called for both a buildup of nuclear weapons and for enlarged capacity to fight
conventional wars whenever the Russians threatened "piecemeal aggression." It also
called for a reduction of social welfare programs and other services not related to military
needs and for tighter internal security programs.
May 9: Truman announces U.S. military aid to French in Indochina.
June 25: North Korean troops cross the 38th parallel in a surprise invasion of South
Korea.
September 23: Congress passes McCarran Internal Security Act to monitor domestic
communist activities.
October 19: Chinese units cross the Yalu River into Korea.
December 23: U.S. signs a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with Vietnam.
1951
May 9: AEC explodes thermonuclear device at Enewetok, Marshall Islands.
May 27: Tibet ends resistance to Chinese takeover.
September 8: U.S. and Japan sign peace treaty with U.S. military presence for defense of
Japan. U.S. also negotiates mutual security agreement with Philippines, Australia, and
New Zealand (ANZUS Pact).
1952
January 31: Truman denounces McCarthy for "anti-Communist tactics."
June 14: Truman lays keel of USS Nautilus, first nuclear submarine.
November 1: AEC explodes hydrogen bomb at Enewetok, Marshall Islands.
November 4: Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president.
1953
January 20: Eisenhower inaugurated as president.
March 5: Josef Stalin dies in Moscow.
40
March 15: Soviet MIG-15 fighters fire at U.S. WB-50 weather plane near the
Kamchatka Peninsula.
July 27: Armistice is signed ending the Korean War. Korea remains divided at the 38th
parallel, creating the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone).
August 1: U.S. Information Agency (USIA) is established.
August 14: Soviet Union explodes a hydrogen bomb.
August 16: Shah of Iran flees to Rome after attempting and failing to dismiss Prime
Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who sought to nationalize the Iranian oil industry.
August 22: U.S. -backed coup overthrows Mossadegh and restores Shah of Iran.
1954
March 1: U.S. explodes hydrogen bomb in Marshall Islands (BRAVO); yield far greater
than expected.
May 1: Soviet Union unveils M-4, its first jet-propelled long-range bomber.
May 8: French army is defeated in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu.
May 30: First operational NIKE Ajax missiles deployed at Fort Meade, Maryland.
June: First Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) tested.
July 17-28: Geneva Accords end French colonialism in Indochina; Vietnam divided at
the 1 7th parallel.
August 24: Communist Party outlawed in U.S. as Eisenhower signs Communist Control
Act.
September 7: Australia, Britain, France, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, New
Zealand, and the United States form the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO),
an anticommunist alliance against "massive military aggression."
September 27: U.S. and Canada agree to construct the Distant Early Warning (DEW)
line of radar stations from Alaska across Canada to Greenland to warn of surprise attack.
October 13: U.S. approves production of first supersonic bomber, the B-58
October 23: West Germany is invited to join NATO and becomes a member on May 5,
1955.
December 2: Senate condemns McCarthy, ending the McCarthy era.
1955
April 14: Nike Ajax missile at Fort Meade, Maryland, accidentally launched, injuring
one crewman; the missile fell apart in the air, causing no damage.
Mid-year: Nikita Khrushchev consolidates his power in the Soviet Union as Stalin's
successor.
May 14: Warsaw Pact signed, calling for the mutual defense of Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, and the Soviet Union.
June 15: U.S. stages its first nationwide civil defense exercise.
June 29: B-52 intercontinental bomber deployment begins in the United States.
July: Fear of a "Bomber Gap" ensues after Soviets fly Bear and Bison long-range
bombers multiple times past American visitors at an air show, causing an exaggerated
assessment of Soviet inventories.
July 18: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and Eden discuss disarmament and European security
at Geneva Summit Conference. Eisenhower proposes "Open Skies," which would allow
aerial reconnaissance of each other's territories. Khrushchev refuses to allow it.
July 31: DEW Line begins operation in Alaska and Canada.
41
November 19: Baghdad Pact signed by Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. U.S.
pledges military and political liaison.
1956
July 27: Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal in
retaliation for the U.S. and the World Bank's withdrawing financial support for the
Aswan Dam.
October 29-31: Britain, France, and Israel attack Egypt.
October 23-November 4: Hungarians revolt against communist rule and make futile
pleas for U.S. assistance as Soviet forces crush the resistance.
November 6: Eisenhower reelected.
November 17: "We will bury you" statement made by Khrushchev to Western
diplomats.
1957
January 5: Eisenhower Doctrine presented to Congress, allowing the president to
commit troops to the Middle East to thwart communist aggression there.
January 20: Eisenhower is inaugurated president for a second term. He insists on
plarming for total nuclear war (eventually called "mutual assured destruction"), rather
than limited nuclear war, as a means of avoiding total war altogether because of the
consequences for mankind.
March 25: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany
agree to form the European Economic Community (EEC), or the Common Market.
August 26: Moscow announces its first successful ICBM test.
September 19: First underground nuclear test takes place in a mountain tunnel near Las
Vegas.
October 4: Soviet Union launches Sputnik, first satellite to orbit Earth, prompting U.S.
fears of a "missile gap."
November 3: Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, which carries the first living creature (a
dog) into space.
December 17: First successful test of Atlas. ICBM.
December: Gaither Report to the NSC states Soviet Union has achieved superiority in
long-range ballistic missiles, adding to fears of a "missile gap." In reality, this gap does
not exist.
1958
January 31: U.S. Army launches American satellite. Explorer I, into orbit.
March 5: Radar tracks first-known Soviet long-range bombers flying a reconnaissance
mission over Alaska.
March 27: Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier in addition to being First Secretary of
the Communist Party.
March 30: Soviet Union suspends atmospheric nuclear testing.
May 22: Accidental explosion at Nike site NY-53 near Middletown, New Jersey,
destroyed 8 Nike Ajax missiles, kills 10 men, and injures 3 others.
June: First Titan I ICBM delivered; will replace Atlas missiles.
June 30: First U.S. Nike Hercules missile, with increased range capabilities, declared
operational.
October 1: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is formally
established.
42
October: U.S. and Britain suspend atmospheric testing.
November: Khrushchev delivers uhimatum: Begin East- West talks over the future of
Germany (a reunified, neutral, denuclearized Germany) or face the permanent division of
Germany; Khrushchev soon backs down.
1959
January 6: Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, becomes premier.
March: Nike Hercules batteries at Fort Richardson, Alaska, become operational.
April: Aleutian DEW Line stations become operational.
July 24: U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon visits the Soviet Union, takes on
Khrushchev in the "kitchen debate" (while the two were touring a model kitchen) on the
merits of capitalism vs. communism.
September: First successful launch of Minuteman solid- fuel ICBM booster rocket.
September 9: Atlas ICBM becomes operational.
September 13: Soviet spacecraft reaches the moon and crashes there.
September 15: Khrushchev visits United States, meets Eisenhower at Camp David, and
agrees to summit meeting in Paris, May 16, 1960.
December 1 : Antarctica Treaty signed in Washington; 1 2 nations agree to reserve
Antarctica for scientific research, free from political and military uses.
1960
March: Eisenhower agrees to CIA proposal to train Cuban exiles to subvert Castro
regime.
May 1: U-2 reconnaissance plane shot down over central U.S.S.R. Pilot Gary Powers is
held by the Soviet Union. Khrushchev announces incident on May 5, after Eisenhower
has issued a contradictory statement, thereby catching the president in a falsehood.
May 16: East- West summit conference in Paris collapses over U-2 incident.
May 24: U.S. launches Midas II satellite for military reconnaissance purposes.
July 20: U.S. fires first ballistic missile from a submerged submarine off Cape
Canaveral.
August 19: U-2 pilot Gary Powers sentenced by the U.S.S.R. to ten years in prison; he is
exchanged for a Soviet spy in 1 96 1 .
November 8: John F. Kennedy elected president.
December 20: Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Republic of Vietnam, organizes the National
Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF).
1961
January 3: Eisenhower Administration breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.
January 17: Eisenhower warns of potential "unwarranted influence ... by the military-
industrial complex" in his farewell address.
January 20: John F. Kennedy inaugurated as president.
February: First successful launch of complete Minuteman ICBM, at Cape Canaveral,
Florida.
March 13: Kennedy proposes the Alliance for Progress, a 10-year plan of economic aid
to Latin America.
April 12: Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin is the first man to orbit the Earth.
April 17: Bay of Pigs landing by more than 1,000 CIA-trained Cuban refugees fails in its
attempt to "liberate" Cuba.
43
May 5: First American in space, Alan B. Shepard, makes suborbital flight aboard a
Mercury capsule.
May 11: Kennedy authorizes American advisors to aid South Vietnam against the forces
of North Vietnam.
May 25: Kennedy pledges to put man on the moon before decade ends.
June 3: Vienna Summit: Khrushchev reissues uhimatum to begin talks on Germany
within 6 months or face a permanent the division of Germany. Kennedy responds with
call for military buildup, beginning of civil defense program.
August 13: East Germany closes the Brandenburg Gate, sealing the border between East
and West Berlin in preparation for building the Berlin Wall.
September 1 : Soviet Union resumes atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.
September 15: U.S. resumes underground testing of nuclear weapons.
1962
January 29: East- West Conference on Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests, begun in
October 1958, collapses in deadlock at Geneva.
February 20: John Glenn becomes first American to orbit the Earth.
April 25: United States resumes atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.
October: Minuteman I became operational; ICBMs deployed in silos for blast protection.
October 14: U-2 flying over Cuba photographs Soviet bases capable of launching
nuclear missiles against U.S. cities, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis.
October 22: Kennedy armounces the naval "quarantine" of Cuba in response to the
construction of Soviet missile bases there. Kennedy warns that a nuclear attack launched
from Cuba would be considered a Soviet attack requiring full retaliation.
October 22: First flight of Minuteman ICBMs placed on operational alert at Malmstrom
AFB, Montana.
October 28: Khrushchev agrees to remove offensive weapons from Cuba and the U.S.
agrees to remove missiles from Turkey and end Cuban-exile incursions.
November 20: Kennedy announces end of Cuban blockade, satisfied that all bases are
removed and Soviet jets will leave the island by December 20.
1963
June 26: Kennedy visits West Berlin, declares American solidarity with residents in "Ich
bin ein Berliner" speech.
June 10: Kennedy, in speech at American University, calls for reconsideration of Cold
War as "holy war."
June 20: "Hot Line" established as a direct teletype link between the White House and
the Kremlin, to begin service on August 30.
July 24: Cuba seizes the U.S. embassy in Havana.
October 7: Kennedy signs Limited Test Ban Treaty. Britain, Soviet Union, and United
States agree to outlaw tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space.
October 11: Kennedy endorses his Commission on the Status of Women's report on
gender discrimination.
November 1 : South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated.
November 22: President Kennedy is assassinated; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson
becomes president.
1964
44
January 8: Lyndon Johnson calls for war on poverty and greater efforts on civil rights in
his first State of the Union Address.
February 2: Unmanned U.S. Ranger VI lands on the Moon.
July 2: Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1964.
July 18: Riots break out in urban ghettoes of New York City and Rochester, the first of
the series of African American riots.
August 2: Johnson orders immediate retaliation for the alleged North Vietnamese attack
on U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin.
August 7: Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the President power to
take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United
States, and to prevent further aggression."
September 27: Warren Commission report on the assassination of President Kennedy is
released; confirms no Soviet involvement.
October 15: Khrushchev is ousted, replaced by Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin.
October 16: China detonates its first atomic bomb.
November 3: Lyndon B. Johnson elected president.
1965
March 8: First U.S. Marines in Vietnam wade ashore at Da Nang.
April: Last Atlas ICBMs are phased out; replaced by Minuteman missiles.
May 2: Johnson sends troops to the Dominican Republic to "prevent another Communist
state in this hemisphere."
November: Battle of the la Drang Valley, the first major clash between the U.S. and the
North Vietnamese Army.
November 29: Atomic Energy Commission conducts 80-kiloton underground nuclear
test. Long Shot, the first of three on Amchitka Island, Alaska.
December 24: U.S. forces in Vietnam number 184,300.
1966
January: ICBM Minuteman II, with improved accuracy, enters service.
February: Senate hearings on the Vietnam War chaired by Senator J. William Fulbright
begin.
March 25: Anti-Vietnam War rallies staged in seven United States and European cities.
April 30: Chinese Cultural Revolution begins with Chou En-lai's call for antibourgeois
struggle.
June 2: Sun^eyor I xmkQS perfect soft landing on moon.
December: U.S. forces number 362,000 in Vietnam.
1967
January 27: Outer Space Treaty limits military uses of space, signed by the U.S.,
U.S.S.R., and 60 other nations.
February 14: Treaty of Tlatelolco, signed in Mexico by all Latin American states except
Cuba, prohibits the introduction or manufacture of nuclear weapons.
June 17: China explodes its first hydrogen bomb.
October 18: Soviet Venus /^ probe lands on Venus.
December: U.S. forces in Vietnam number 485,000.
1968
January: Alexander Dubcek leads Prague Spring reforms in Czechoslovakia to bring
about "socialism with a human face."
45
January 30: Tet Offensive, attacks on South Vietnamese cities by North Vietnamese and
National Liberation Front troops.
March 16: My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
March 31: Johnson hahs bombing of North Vietnam (later resumed) and announces that
he will not seek re-election as president.
April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.
June 5: Robert F. Kennedy assassinated.
July 1: Nuclear Arms Nonproliferation Treaty signed by the United States, U.S.S.R., and
58 other nations.
August 20: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia ends Dubcek experiment.
October 31: Johnson halts bombing of North Vietnam, invites South Vietnam and the
Viet Cong to Paris peace talks.
November 5: Richard M. Nixon elected president.
December: U.S. forces in Vietnam number 535,000.
1969
January 20: Richard M. Nixon inaugurated president.
March: U.S. bombing of Cambodia begins.
June 8: "Vietnamization" of war begins. Nixon orders first troops out of Vietnam. U.S.
forces number 475,200.
July: Nixon reaffirms U.S. commitment to defend its allies, but calls on Third World
nations to assume primary responsibility for their security (Nixon Doctrine).
July 20: Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin land on the Moon.
September 1 : Muammar Khadaffi comes to power after coup in Libya.
September 3: Ho Chi Minh, communist leader of North Vietnam, dies.
November 15: March on Washington draws record 250,000 antiwar protesters.
November 17: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begin between U.S. and
U.S.S.R.
1970
February: Paris Peace Talks begin between U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger and North
Vietnamese diplomat Le Due Tho.
March 5: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons between the U.S. and the
Soviet Union goes into effect, preventing transfer of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear
nations or production of nuclear weapons in those nations.
April 29: U.S. troops invade Cambodia.
May 4: Four Kent State University students killed by National Guardsmen while
protesting Vietnam War.
May 15: Two Jackson State College students killed by police while protesting Vietnam
War.
August: Minuteman III ICBM with multiple warhead capacity enters service in United
States.
September 15: Nixon authorizes U.S. -backed coup in Chile, according to a 1975 Senate
Intelligence Committee report.
December: U.S. forces in Vietnam number 334,600.
1971
February 15: The New York Times begins serial publication of the Pentagon Papers.
November 15: The People's Republic of China joins the U.N.
46
1972
February 17-27: Nixon visits China, pledges to withdraw U.S. forces from Taiwan.
May 8: Nixon orders the mining of Haiphong Harbor and intensive bombing of all
military targets in North Vietnam.
May 26: SALT I agreement signed restricting development of ABMs and freezing
numbers of ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) in place for 5
years.
May 29: Nixon and Brezhnev sign agreement on the "basic principles of detente" which
produces a relaxation on the tensions, recognizes the Soviet Union as the military-
political policeman of Eastern Europe, and opens economic markets between the two
countries.
June 17: Watergate burglary.
August 12: U.S. bombers deliver largest 24-hour bombing of the Vietnam War on North
Vietnam.
October: Moscow Summit between Nixon and Brezhnev.
November 7: Nixon reelected.
December 7: Apollo 77 makes final maimed lunar landing.
December 13: Paris Peace Talks break down.
December 17-30: Linebacker II bombing of Hanoi and North Vietnam.
December: Nixon orders renewed bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, North Vietnam.
1973
January 23: Nixon announces Vietnam War will end on January 28 and troops will be
removed within 60 days.
January 27: Paris Accords establish cease-fire and political settlement of Vietnam War.
March 29: Military Assistance Command Vietnam closes, last U.S. soldiers leave.
May 11: East and West Germany establish formal diplomatic relations.
August 15: U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends.
September 11: Chilean Government of Salvador Allende overthrown in a violent coup.
Allende dies.
October 6: Yom Kippur War begins with Egypt and Syria fighting Israel.
October 17: Arab oil producers begin embargo against the United States.
November 6: War Powers Act passed by Congress limits power of president to wage
undeclared wars.
1974
March 1: Indictment returned against seven former presidential aides in the Watergate
conspiracy. Nixon named an unindicted co-conspirator.
March 18: Arab oil embargo ends.
May 9: House Judiciary Committee opens presidential impeachment hearings.
May 18: India announces it has held an underground nuclear test.
July 27: House Judiciary Committee votes to recommend Nixon's impeachment.
August 8: Nixon announces his resignation.
August 9: Gerald Ford sworn in as 38th President.
1975
April: ABM: U.S. deploys Safeguard, an ABM system, at Grand Forks Air Force Base,
North Dakota.
47
April 12: United States ends official presence in Cambodia as Marines evacuate
diplomats in wake of Khmer Rouge victory.
April 30: Saigon falls to North Vietnamese troops as Americans evacuate.
May 14: Ford orders rescue of cargo ship captured by Cambodian Khmer Rouge (the
Mayaguez incident).
July 17: U.S.-Soviet astronauts in Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft link up in space.
July: Helsinki Accords signed, pledging the United States and Soviet Union to accept
European borders, protect human rights, and promote freer transnational trade and
cultural exchanges.
December 21: Palestinian terrorists raid OPEC meeting in Vienna, killing three.
1976
May 28: U.S. and Soviet Union sign treaty limiting size and nature of underground
nuclear tests.
July 2: Socialist Republic of Vietnam is proclaimed.
July 20: Viking I robot spacecraft lands on Mars.
September 9: Mao Zedong dies, setting off succession struggle in China.
November 2: Jimmy Carter elected President.
1977
February 24: Carter aimounces linkage of foreign aid to human rights.
July 18: Vietnam admitted to U.N.
August 10: United States and Panama agree to transfer Panama Canal to Panamanian
control by year 2000.
1978
April 7: Carter announces postponement of neutron bomb production.
May 30: Carter recommends that NATO modernize and increase alliance's military
forces. Signals end of detente.
September 17: Camp David Accords signed between Egypt and Israel, with Carter's
assistance, setting timetable to end the 30-year state of war between Israel and Egypt in
exchange for Israel's return of Sinai to Egypt.
October 16: Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla elected pope, the first Slavic pope in history;
adopts the name John Paul II. His election shocks and alarms Soviet leaders.
December 15: United States and China announce restoration of fiill diplomatic relations
on January 1 , 1 979.
1979
January 16: Shah of Iran flees Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile to
establish ftindamentalist Shiite government in Iran on February 26.
March 26: Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt sign Camp David
Peace Treaty in White House ceremony.
May 4: Margaret Thatcher becomes British prime minister.
June: Pope John Paul II makes triumphal visit to Poland, igniting nationalist and
religious fervor that highlights the moral bankruptcy of communism.
June 18: SALT II agreement to limit long-range missiles and bombers signed by Carter
and Brezhnev.
July: In Nicaraguan Revolution, leftist Sandinista forces overthrow Somoza dictatorship.
October 15: Civil war breaks out in El Salvador.
48
November 4: Iranian militants seize U.S. Embassy in Teheran, take 63 Americans
hostage, demanding return of Shah of Iran, then in United States for medical treatment.
December 4: Carter calls for a major military buildup to counter Soviet military power.
December 20: Soviet army invades Afghanistan. U.S. sanctions against the U.S.S.R.
include a grain embargo, decreased scientific and cultural exchanges, a boycott of the
1980 Moscow Olympic Games, and failure to ratify SALT II.
December: NATO announces "Dual-Track" deployment of intermediate-range nuclear
forces (INF) in Europe to counter Warsaw Pact SS-20 missiles.
1980
January: Carter Doctrine calls Persian Gulf a U.S. "vital interest."
April 24: U.S. military fails in attempt to rescue Iranian hostages, eight servicemen die in
crash.
July: Carter signs Presidential Directive 59 calling for capacity to wage limited and
protracted nuclear war.
September 19: Missile explosion in the silo at Titan II Launch Complex 374-7, Van
Buren County, Arkansas, kills one airman and injures another.
September 22: Solidarity labor union formed in Poland under leadership of Lech
Walesa.
November 4: Ronald Reagan elected president.
1981
January 20: Reagan inaugurated as Iranians release hostages.
January 26: Walesa leads Polish workers in illegal strike for 5-day workweek.
March 30: John Hinkley shoots Reagan in assassination attempt; Reagan has surgery and
survives.
April 12: Space shuttle Columbia makes maiden voyage, landing with wheels rather than
splashing down.
May 13: In St. Peter's Square, Mehmet Ali Agca shoots Pope John Paul II, who survives;
assassination attempt is quickly linked to Bulgarian intelligence, and Soviet complicity is
strongly suspected.
October 6: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat assassinated.
November: Protest over NATO INF deployment draws 400,000 in Amsterdam.
November 18: Reagan proposes significant reductions in strategic forces, called the
"zero option," which would eliminate an entire class of nuclear missiles.
December 13: Martial law imposed in Poland.
1982
April 2: Britain begins 74-day battle with Argentina for control of Falkland Islands.
May 9: Reagan outlines U.S. Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) proposal, to
reduce the number of ICBMs and arrive at verifiable agreement to reduce risk of war and
number of strategic nuclear weapons on both sides.
June 12: New York march against nuclear arms attracts 800,000 protestors.
June 29: START negotiations open in Geneva.
November 10: Leonid Brezhnev dies.
November 12: Yuri Andropov, former head of the KGB, succeeds Brezhnev as General
Secretary of the Soviet Union.
1983
49
March 23: Reagan proposes SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star
Wars) to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.
April 6: Scowcroft Commission Report calls for modernizing U.S. strategic weapons,
undertaking negotiations leading to balanced arms control agreements with meaningful,
verifiable reductions.
May 24: Congress authorizes MX missile procurement and development.
July 21: Poland lifts martial law.
August 21: Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino is assassinated as he returns to
Manila from self-imposed exile.
September 1: Korean Air Flight 007 shot down by Soviet jet fighter in Soviet airspace.
All 269 aboard are killed.
October 23: Terrorist attack on U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, kills 241.
October 25: United States invades Grenada.
November 22: U.S. begins deployment of INF missiles (Pershing II) in West Germany
after protracted political fight.
December 28: U.S. withdraws from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization), charging mismanagement and political bias.
December: Soviet Union suspends START talks.
1984
February 7: American Marines withdraw from Lebanon.
February 9: Yuri Andropov dies.
February 13: Konstantin Chemenko succeeds Andropov as General Secretary of the
Soviet Union.
September 20: U.S. Embassy in Beirut bombed, killing 12.
September 24: Reagan proposes to U.N. General Assembly a broad "umbrella"
framework for U.S.-U.S.S.R. arms talks.
November 6: Reagan reelected.
November 22: U.S. and U.S.S.R. agree to new negotiations on nuclear and space issues.
1985
March 10: Konstantin Chemenko dies.
March 13: Mikhail Gorbachev succeeds Chemenko as General Secretary.
March 12: Nuclear and Space Talks (NST) open in Geneva, based on START proposals
of 1983.
September 9: Reagan announces economic sanctions against South Africa.
September 30: Soviet Union presents START proposal, which accepts for the first time
the principle of deep reductions in strategic offensive forces.
November 1: U.S. counters with new START proposal.
November 21: At the Geneva Summit, Reagan and Gorbachev issue joint statement on
cooperation in arms reductions with goal of 50 percent reductions of nuclear arms.
1986
January 15: Gorbachev proposes eliminating all nuclear weapons over next 15 years,
contingent on United States backing off SDI. Reagan applauds proposal, but won't
change position on SDI and supports principle of 50 percent reduction as agreed to in
1985.
January 28: Space shuttle Challenger accident kills all aboard.
April 11: U.S. launches air strike against Libya in retaliation for Libyan terrorist acts.
50
April 26: Explosion and fire at Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union
spreads radiation over large area.
October 11-12: Gorbachev-Reagan arms talks stall at the Reykjavik Summit in Iceland
over Reagan's refusal to limit SDI research and testing to the laboratory although
agreement is reached on other details.
November 4: First press revelations of the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Reagan
Administration sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to finance Nicaraguan Contra
rebels.
December 22: Peacekeeper ICBM becomes operational.
1987
January 1: Gorbachev addresses Soviet citizens on arms race and threat of war. Reagan
addresses the Soviet people via Voice of America saying that the United States and
Soviet Union are "closer now than ever before ... to agreement to reduce nuclear
arsenals and have taken major steps toward permanent peace."
May 5: Last Titan ICBM Wing removed from alert status as the MX Peacekeeper enters
operation.
August 26: West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl states Germany will destroy its
Pershing missiles if United States and U.S.S.R. agree to destroy intermediate-range
nuclear missiles.
September 15: Nuclear Risk Reduction Center Agreement signed by the United States
and the Soviet Union to promote communication and confidence-building measures.
December 7-10: At the Washington Summit Meeting, Reagan and Gorbachev sign a
treaty eliminating INF and agree to work toward completing START agreement, if
possible for Moscow meeting in first half of 1988.
1988
January 14: NST resumes in Geneva with the United States and U.S.S.R. working on a
joint draft START treaty.
March 15: Oliver North, former National Security Advisor John M. Poindexter, and
Iranian- American arms dealer Albert Hakim are indicted on charges of diverting Iranian
arms sales proceeds to Nicaraguan Contras.
April 15: Soviet Union agrees to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by February 15,
1989, after seven years of peace talks.
May 29-June 1 : At the Moscow summit, Reagan and Gorbachev reiterate their
commitment to concluding the START treaty.
June 28: Gorbachev tells Communist Party leaders that key elements of Communist
doctrine are outdated; defends his proposals for change. Party attempts to relax its grip on
Soviet society in order to advance Gorbachev's Glasnost policies.
July 3: USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air commercial flight, killing 290, after
mistaking plane for Iranian F- 1 4 fighter.
August 16: Pro-Solidarity strikes take place in Poland. Demonstrators demand that
government grant legal status to the union.
August: War in Angola ends, Cubans withdraw from Angola, South Africa from
Namibia.
September 29: Shuttle Discovery launched successfully, the first shuttle flight since the
Challenger disaster.
November 8: George H. W. Bush elected President.
51
1989
April 5: Poland agrees to legalize Solidarity union.
April 17: "Pro-democracy" demonstrations begin in Beijing.
May: Gorbachev visits Beijing to normalize relations with China.
June 3-4: Chinese army assaults prodemocracy students in Tienanmen Square. Many
hundreds of students are killed.
September 22-23: Reciprocal Advance Notice of Major Strategic Exercises Agreement
signed as part of the Wyoming Ministerial by the United States and U.S.S.R. to prevent
inadvertent conflict arising from provocative military exercises.
September-December: Eastern European nations leave Soviet Bloc, renounce ties to
Moscow.
November 9: Berlin Wall is opened as hundreds of thousands of East Germans stream
into West Berlin to visit without restrictions.
November 10: Bulgarian president Todor Zhikov resigns after 35 years of hard-line
communist power.
December 2-3: Bush proposes the acceleration of START negotiations.
December 20: United States invades Panama.
December 22: The Romanian army overthrows President Nicolae Ceausescu; three days
later he and his wife are executed.
1990
February 26: Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega concedes defeat for his Sandinista
Front in popular elections, ending one-party Marxist rule of Nicaragua.
March 18: East German voters opt for German reunification and market-based economy.
May 2: South African government and African National Congress hold first talks in Cape
Town on ending white minority rule.
May 30-June 3: Washington, D.C., summit meeting between Bush and Gorbachev.
July 24: SAC takes National Emergency Airborne Command Post ("Looking Glass")
aircraft off continuous alert duty.
August 2: Iraq invades Kuwait.
September 3: U.S. sends combat aircraft to the Middle East to help defend Saudi
Arabian allies from Iraq.
October 3: Two Germany s reunify into one nation.
October 15: South Africa bans racial discrimination in public accommodations only.
November: Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe cuts East- West land armies.
November 28: Margaret Thatcher resigns as British prime minister.
December 12: Lech Walesa elected President of Poland.
1991
January 16: U.S. and international coalition attack Iraq in Gulf War.
March 3: Iraq accepts cease-fire terms.
July 31: Bush and Gorbachev sign START treaty, pledging to destroy thousands of
strategic nuclear weapons.
August 18-21: Coup attempt against Gorbachev fails, but power shifts to Russian
president Boris Yeltsin, who mounts a tank to denounce the coup.
September 1: Clark Air Force Base closes in the Philippines after a volcanic eruption.
September 18: All SAC bombers, tankers, and Minuteman II ICBMs removed from
alert. Minuteman Ills, Peacekeepers, and Navy SSBNs remain on alert.
52
October: Gorbachev and Bush agree to major unilateral cuts in nuclear arms.
December: Commonwealth of Independent States created in the former Soviet Union.
December 25: Gorbachev resigns as Soviet president and transfers control of nuclear
arsenal to Yeltsin. U.S. recognizes six independent republics: Armenia, Belorussia,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Russia, Ukraine. The Soviet Union no longer exists.
SOURCES:
Department of Defense Legacy Cold War Project. Coming in from the Cold: Military
Heritage in the Cold War. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office,
1994.
Gaddis, John Lewis. 77?^ Cold War: A New History. New York, NY: The Penguin Press,
2005.
Waddell, Karen. Cold War Historical Context, 1951-1991, Fort Richardson, Alaska,
United States Army Alaska. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, 2003.
53
ASSOCIATED PROPERTY TYPES
This section is intended to assist agencies and individuals in identifying, documenting,
and evaluating properties under the Cold War Sites context for possible designation as
National Historic Landmarks (NHLs). This section is divided into two subsections. The
first describes four broad property types that emerged from the historic contexts and
properties identified during the course of the study, and the second provides registration
requirements based on the NHL criteria as applied to the Cold War context and property
types.
TYPES OF COLD WAR PROPERTIES
The Cold War began at the end of World War II as the great powers jockeyed for position
and advantage in order to influence and dominate the postwar world. For approximately
four and a half decades after the end of the war, the Soviet Union, the United States, and
their respective allies confronted each other with strategies and tactics that created an
atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, in contrast with the certainty of a "hot" war. Both
sides developed, tested, and deployed offensive and defensive missile networks. Each
side evolved weapons and delivery systems. Each side challenged and provoked the
other and gauged responses to blockades and the proximity of threatening missile sites.
The Soviets and the United States each backed opposing sides in proxy wars or became
directly involved themselves, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
During the course of the Cold War, the United States developed increasingly powerful
nuclear weapons and more efficient and accurate delivery systems including aircraft,
missiles, and submarines. Testing and production facilities likewise grew in complexity
and size. To defend the nation, sophisticated early warning radar stations, surface and
embedded missile sites, protected command and control centers, and large flight training
centers were created and expanded. In addition, each President of the United States
adopted and refined strategies for dealing with the Soviet threat: containment, tactical
nuclear weapons, mutual assured destruction, detente, and the Strategic Defense Initiative
or "Star Wars," among others. The threats, the defenses, and the strategies all interacted
to create an environment of property types constructed to meet the nation's needs.
In this theme study, particular attention has been paid to the property types identified in
the enabling legislation for consideration:
(i) Intercontinental ballistic missiles;
(ii) Flight training centers;
(iii) Manufacturing facilities;
(iv) Communications and command centers (such as
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado);
(v) Defensive radar netv/orks (such as the Distant
Early Warning Line);
(vi) Nuclear weapons test sites (such as the Nevada
test site); and
(vii) Strategic and tactical aircraft
54
Places associated with research and development will include laboratories. Examples
already listed in the National Register of Historic Places or determined eligible for listing
include Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos County, New Mexico; McKinley
Climatic Laboratory, Okaloosa County, Florida; and Oak Ridge Historic District,
Anderson County, Tennessee. Examples already designated as National Historic
Landmarks include Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 , Idaho National Engineering Lab,
Butte County, Idaho; and X-10 Reactor, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Roane County,
Tennessee.
Places associated with production and testing will include test sites, arsenals, and
manufacturing facilities. Examples already listed in the National Register of Historic
Places or determined eligible for listing include the Fort Hancock and Sandy Hook
Proving Ground Historic District, Monmouth County, New Jersey; One-Million-Liter
Test Sphere (Horton Test Sphere), Ft. Detrick, Frederick County, Maryland; and Rocky
Flats Plant, Jefferson County, Colorado. Examples already designated as National
Historic Landmarks include the B Reactor, Richland, Benton County, Washington; Eight-
Foot High-Speed Tunnel, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia; and Full-
Scale Wind Tunnel, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia.
Places associated with controlling and executing the national defense will include
command and control centers, missile launch sites, flight training centers, military posts,
depots and storage facilities, and defensive radar networks. Examples already listed in
the National Register of Historic Places or determined eligible for listing include D-01
Launch Control Facility/D-09 Launch Facility, Ellsworth AFB (Minuteman Missile
National Historic Site), Jackson/Pennington County, South Dakota; Nike Missile Site
C47, Porter County, Indiana; Grand Forks Safeguard ABM Installation, Grand Forks
County, North Dakota; Site Summit, Anchorage County, Alaska; Tierra Amarilla AFS P-
8 Historic District, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico; Titan II ICBM Launch Complex
374-7 Site, Van Buren County, Arkansas; Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 374-5 Site,
Faulkner County, Arkansas; and Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-5 Site, White
County, Arkansas. Examples already designated as National Historic Landmarks include
Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 Military Reservation, Pima County, Arizona Fort David
A. Russell (Francis E. Warren AFB), Laramie County, Wyoming; Pentagon, Arlington
County, Virginia; Space Launch Complex 10, Vandenberg AFB, Santa Barbara County,
California; and USS Nautilus (submarine). New London County, Connecticut.
Places associated with politics and government will include office buildings, sites of
significant public addresses, and residences. Examples already listed in the National
Register of Historic Places or determined eligible for listing include the Greenbrier Hotel,
Greenbrier County, West Virginia; and Little White House, Monroe County, Florida.
Examples already designated as National Historic Landmarks include Eisenhower
National Historic Site, Adams County, Pennsylvania; General George C. Marshall House,
Loudoun County, Virginia; Greenbrier Hotel, Greenbrier County, West Virginia; Harry S
Truman National Historic Site (Harry S Truman Historic District), Jackson County,
55
Missouri; Kennedy Compound, Barnstable County, Massachusetts; Westminster College
Gymnasium, Callaway County, Missouri; White House, Washington, D.C.; and
Whitakker Chambers Farm, Carroll County, Maryland.
Preliminary List of Cold War-Related Property Types
Cold War-related property and resource types include buildings, sites, structures, objects,
and districts.
Examples of buildings include houses, duplexes, barracks, bachelor officer quarters,
apartment buildings, garages, motor pools, sheds, bath houses, latrines, hangars, railroad
facilities, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, weapons and ammunition storage
facilities, infirmaries, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, fire stations, laundries, recreational
facilities, mess halls, bakeries, restaurants, theaters, armories, offices, guardhouses, radar
stations, maintenance shops, carpenter shops, churches, chapels, schools, classroom
buildings, laboratories, command and control bunkers, post exchanges, commissaries,
communications facilities, water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, gas stations,
incinerators, artillery batteries, Quonset huts, air raid shelters, fallout shelters, post offices,
and service clubs.
Examples of sites include archaeological sites, rifle ranges, artillery ranges, missile
ranges, and atomic bomb test sites.
Examples of structures include mines, nuclear reactors, runways, launch pads, storage
tanks, electric substations, power plants, pump houses, missile silos, railroads, ships and
boats, submarines, aircraft, reservoirs, magazines, fences, running tracks, and baseball
fields.
Examples of objects include monuments, missiles, and nose cones.
Examples of districts include residential areas, office complexes, missile launch facilities,
manufacturing complexes, storage and warehousing complexes, and communication
complexes.
56
Registration Requirements for National Historic Landmark Designation
This section is intended to assist agencies and individuals in evaluating properties related
to the Cold War for designation as National Historic Landmarks.
NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS
National Historic Landmarks relevant to the Cold War must be acknowledged to be
among the nation's most significant properties associated with research and development,
production and testing, controlling and executing the national defense, or politics and
government. The association must have been established between the beginning of the
Cold War (approximately at the end of World War II) and December 25, 1991, when
Mikhail Gorbachev signed the document officially disbanding the Soviet Union.
The thresholds for designation as a National Historic Landmark include national
significance and a high degree of integrity. In addition, each property must be evaluated
in comparison with other properties associated with the Cold War to determine their
relative significance and integrity.
Any National Historic Landmark designated under this context must have a nationally
significant association with one or more of the important topics discussed in the historic
context. According to National Historic Landmark regulations (36 CFR 65.4 [a & b]),
the quality of national significance can be ascribed to districts, sites, buildings, structures,
and objects that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the
heritage of the United States in history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and
culture; that possess a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, materials,
workmanship, feeling, and association; and that:
(Criterion 1 ) are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to, and
are identified with, or that outstandingly represent, the broad national patterns of United
States history and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns may
be gained;
(Criterion 2) are associated importantly with the lives of persons nationally significant in
the history of the United States;
(Criterion 3) represent some great idea or ideal of the American people;
(Criterion 4) embody the distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type specimen
exceptionally valuable for the study of a period, style, or method of construction, or
represent a significant, distinctive, and exceptional entity whose components may lack
individual distinction;
(Criterion 5) are composed of integral parts of the environment that are not sufficiently
significant by reason of historical association or artistic merit to warrant individual
recognition but that collectively compose an entity of exceptional historical or artistic
significance, or outstandingly commemorate or illustrate a way of life or culture; or
(Criterion 6) have yielded or may be likely to yield information of major scientific
importance by revealing new cultures, or by shedding light upon periods of occupation of
large areas of the United States. Such sites are those which have yielded, or which may
57
reasonably be expected to yield, data affecting theories, concepts, and ideas to a major
degree.
The following section provides suggestions for criteria and topics with which potential
National Historic Landmarks might be associated. Examples of National Historic
Landmarks already designated, and their association with the Cold War, also are given.
Criterion 1
In order to be eligible for designation under this criterion, properties must have played a
central role in nationally significant events.
Places associated with research and development might include laboratories and facilities
designed for the testing of components. Places already designated as National Historic
Landmarks that meet this criterion include the Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 ,
located at the Idaho National Engineering Lab, Butte County, Idaho, and the X-10
Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Roane County, Tennessee. The Experimental
Breeder Reactor generated the world's first electricity from atomic energy and the X-10
was the first reactor built for continuous operation and experimentation.
Places associated with production and testing may include reactors, factories, arsenals,
test sites, and similar facilities. Places already designated as National Historic
Landmarks that meet this criterion include the Eight-Foot High-Speed Tunnel and the
Full-Scale Wind Tunnel located at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton,
Virginia. They were used before and during the Cold War to test scale models and full-
scale high-performance aircraft. Space Launch Complex 1 0, Vandenburg Air Force Base,
in Santa Barbara County, California, is also included; it was a Thor missile test site. The
B Reactor at the Hanford site in Washington was the world's first production-scale
nuclear reactor, constructed in 1943-1944, and produced the plutonium for the world's
first nuclear test at the Trinity site and for the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki,
Japan.
Places and resources associated with controlling and executing the national defense may
include command and control centers, missile sites, flight training facilities, ships and
aircraft, and military posts. Places and resources already designated as National Historic
Landmarks that meet this criterion include the Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 Military
Reservation in Pima County, Arizona; Fort David A. Russell (Francis E. Warren Air
Force Base) in Laramie County, Wyoming; the Pentagon, in Arlington County, Virginia;
Space Launch Complex 1 0, Vandenburg Air Force Base, in Santa Barbara County,
California; and USS Nautilus, located in New London County, Connecticut. Site 8,
Complex 1 0, and Warren Air Force Base were missile launch sites. The Pentagon is the
nation's central military command facility. Nautilus was the world's first nuclear-
powered submarine.
Places associated with politics and government may include dwellings, office buildings,
and other facilities. Places already designated as National Historic Landmarks that meet
this criteria include the Eisenhower National Historic Site near Gettysburg in Adams
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County, Pennsylvania; General George C. Marshall House in Leesburg, Loudoun County,
Virginia; Westminster College Gymnasium in Callaway County, Missouri; the White
House, in Washington, D.C.; and Whittaker Chambers Farm in Carroll County, Maryland.
The Eisenhower Site, intended for his retirement home, was also where he met with
world leaders including Nikita Khrushchev while president. The Marshall House is
where the general lived while secretary of state, when he engineered the Marshall Plan.
Whittaker Chambers concealed the infamous "Pumpkin Papers" at his Maryland farm.
Former British prime minister Winston Churchill delivered his "Iron Curtain" speech
inside the Westminster College Gymnasium in 1946.
Criterion 2
Properties designated as National Historic Landmarks under this criterion must be
associated importantly with individuals who played central roles in the Cold War.
People whose associated places are likely to be eligible under this criterion in the area of
research and development might include scientists. No such place meeting Criterion 2
has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
People whose associated places are likely to be eligible under this criterion in the area of
production and testing are scientists, military figures, and industrialists. No such place
meeting Criterion 2 has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
People whose associated places are likely to be eligible under this criterion in the area of
controlling and executing the national defense might include political and military leaders.
Places already designated as National Historic Landmarks that meet this criteria include
the Eisenhower National Historic Site near Gettysburg in Adams County, Pennsylvania;
General George C. Marshall House in Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia; and the
White House, in Washington, D.C. They are associated, respectively, with President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, with General and Secretary of State George C. Marshall, and
with all of the presidents who held office during the Cold War.
People whose associated places are likely to be eligible under this criterion in the area of
politics and government might include political leaders. Places already designated as
National Historic Landmarks that meet this criteria include the Eisenhower National
Historic Site near Gettysburg in Adams County, Pennsylvania, and the White House, in
Washington, D.C. They are associated, respectively, with President Dwight D.
Eisenhower and with all of the presidents who held office during the Cold War.
Criterion 3
Properties designated as National Historic Landmarks under this criterion must be
associated importantly with national ideas and ideals of the highest order as they relate to
the history of the Cold War.
Places that are likely to be eligible under this criterion might include sites that
outstandingly represent presidential leadership, in terms both of crisis management and of
inspiring the American people, during the Cold War. The place already designated as a
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National Historic Landmark that meets this criteria is the White House, in Washington,
D.C. It was there that the presidents who held office during the Cold War planned
strategies, addressed and inspired the American people, and managed such events as the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
Criterion 4
Properties designated as National Historic Landmarks under this criterion must be
exceptionally important examples of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering,
planning, or construction techniques. Such properties might include government
buildings or complexes that were designed by nationally recognized architects or that
played vital roles in the Cold War.
Places of surpassing architectural importance associated with research and development
might include laboratories and similar facilities. No such place meeting Criterion 4 has
been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Places associated with the production of nuclear weapons materials (such as enriched
uranium and plutonium) as well as the production and testing of weapons and other
resources used during the Cold War might include arsenals, factories, and test sites. No
such place meeting Criterion 4 has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Places and resources associated with controlling and executing the national defense may
include command and control centers, missile sites, flight training facilities, and military
posts. Places and resources already designated as National Historic Landmarks that may
meet this criterion include the Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 Military Reservation in
Pima County, Arizona; Fort David A. Russell (Francis E. Warren Air Force Base) in
Laramie County, Wyoming; the Pentagon, in Arlington County, Virginia; Space Launch
Complex 10, Vandenburg Air Force Base, in Santa Barbara County, California; and USS
Nautilus, located in New London County, Connecticut. Site 8, Complex 10, and Warren
Air Force Base were important (and almost the sole surviving) missile launch sites. The
Pentagon is the nation's central military command facility, architecturally significant.
Nautilus was the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, an exceptionally important
example of advanced design.
Criterion 5
Districts that possess extraordinary historic importance under other criteria may be
eligible for designation under this criterion as well, while districts whose primary
significance is architectural are more likely to be designated under Criterion 4.
No district meeting Criterion 5 has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Criterion 6
This criterion applies primarily to archeological sites. To be eligible, a site must be
shown to have data that will make or have already made major contributions to our
understanding of the Cold War by resolving a substantial historical debate or by
substantially modifying a major historical concept.
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No site meeting Criterion 6 has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Criteria Exceptions
Ordinarily, cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, properties owned by
religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures that have been moved from
their original locations, reconstructed historic buildings, and properties that have
achieved significance within the past fifty years are not eligible for designation as
National Historic Landmarks. If such properties fall within the following categories they
may, nevertheless, be found to qualify:
(1) A religious property deriving its primary national significance from architectural or
artistic distinction or historical importance;
(2) A building removed from its original location but which is nationally significant
primarily for its architectural merit, or for association with persons or events of
transcendent importance in the nation's history and the association consequential;
(3) A site of a building or structure no longer standing but the person or event associated
with it is of transcendent importance in the nation's history and the association
consequential;
(4) A birthplace, grave, or burial site if it is of a historical figure of transcendent national
significance and no other appropriate site, building, or structure directly associated with
the productive life of that person exists;
(5) A cemetery that derives its primary national significance from graves of persons of
transcendent importance, or from an exceptionally distinctive design or an exceptionally
significant event;
(6) A reconstructed building or ensemble of buildings of extraordinary national
significance when accurately executed in a suitable environment and presented in a
dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan, and when no other buildings or
structures with the same association have survived;
(7) A property primarily commemorative in intent if design, age, tradition, or symbolic
value has invested it with its own national historical significance;
(8) A property achieving national significance within the past 50 years if it is of
extraordinary national importance.
Several of the Cold War-related sites that have been designated National Historic
Landmarks have been designated under criteria exception 8, either specifically or in that
they were less than fifty years old when designated. They include Air Force Facility
Missile Site 8 Military Reservation in Pima County, Arizona; Fort David A. Russell
(Francis E. Warren Air Force Base) in Laramie County, Wyoming; Space Launch
Complex 10, Vandenburg Air Force Base, in Santa Barbara County, California; USS
Nautilus, located in New London County, Connecticut; and Whittaker Chambers Farm in
Carroll County, Maryland.
Themes
Several historical themes can be associated with the Cold War, based on the Revised
Thematic Framework that the National Park Service adopted in 1 994. Derived from the
historic context above, the themes include: IV. Shaping the Political Landscape; VI.
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Expanding Science and Technology; and VII. Changing Role of the United States in the
World Community. These themes and others are outlined in History in the National Park
Service: Themes and Concepts (1994).
Integrity
A high degree of integrity is essential for a property to be designated a National Historic
Landmark related to the Cold War. The property must retain to a high degree the historic
fabric that conveys its exceptional historical significance. Seven standards can be used to
assess the integrity of a property: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship,
feeling, and association.
Location is the exact place where a historic event occurred or where a historic property
was constructed. A property associated with the Cold War will meet the standard of
location if it is the actual site where something significant happened or if it is the place
where a historic structure was built. Properties that have been moved may only be
considered for designation if they meet the requirements of Exception 2 above.
Design includes the architectural features that establish the historic form, plan, space,
structure, and style of a property. In districts, design reflects the way in which buildings,
sites, and structures relate to each other. If essential design elements are lost in the
process of rehabilitation or adaptive reuse, the integrity of the property will be reduced.
Setting relates to the environment in which a property is located. A building constructed
in a rural location will have greater integrity of setting if the surroundings are still rural
than if they have been enveloped by new structures.
Materials are the elements from which a structure is built. National Historic Landmarks
need to retain a high degree of original materials, both on the exterior and on the interior.
Workmanship reflects the skill and labor required to construct a historic building or
structure. Generally, good workmanship is appropriate to the type of structure, whether a
modest dwelling, a missile site, or an architecturally sophisticated public building.
Feeling is a historic property's expression of the time in which it was constructed or used.
Modem intrusions, surfaces, and treatments may adversely affect the historic feeling of a
property.
Association is the direct link between an important historic event or person and a specific
site. A site where a significant event actually occurred or where a creative person did his
work will have a strong element of association if the property still conveys its historic
character through the existence of other physical features.
Evaluation
Historic properties considered for designation as National Historic Landmarks must be
evaluated against other comparable properties also associated with the Cold War.
Through such evaluation, those that have the strongest association with the era, the
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highest level of significance, and a superior degree of integrity will be the best properties
to be considered for designation.
For National Historic Landmark designation, an archeological property should possess
the aspects of integrity described above to a high degree. The intactness of archeological
deposits must be professionally demonstrated, to determine whether the site has the
potential to yield data that may address nationally significant research questions. For
further information for evaluating properties for National Historic Landmark designation,
see National Register Bulletin: How to Prepare National Historic Landmark
Nominations (1999).
If properties associated with the Cold War that are eligible for listing in the National
Register of Historic Places are rare, those potentially eligible for designation as National
Historic Landmarks are even rarer. Few sites would meet the significance criteria, and
fewer still would retain the high level of integrity needed for designation. Careful
research and evaluation will be needed to determine if, in fact, there are any such sites in
existence.
63
Methodology
The process for identifying properties associated with the Cold War Sites historic context
began in June 2010 with letters from the historical consultant to State Historic
Preservation Officers, Federal Preservation Officers, and Tribal Preservation Officers
throughout the United States and its territories. The letters requested assistance in
identifying properties associated with the Cold War. At the same time, research in
secondary sources was conducted concerning the history of the Cold War, the
development of the atomic bomb and the creation of the national nuclear weapons
complex, and the research, development, testing, production, and deployment of the
offensive and defensive missile systems, defensive radar networks, and military
installations that defended the United States during the Cold War.
The Cold War, a global contest, went on for almost half a century. To wage it, the United
States not only created an infrastructure of missile and radar sites that were later altered
to support advances in technology, it also "retrofitted" older sites and military
installations, adapting them for new uses such as training, bomb storage, and missile
testing. As a result, while some Cold War sites were newly constructed during the period
1945-1991, others include elements of older facilities. In addition, since the end of the
Cold War, many sites have been deactivated, destroyed, or turned over to cities, states,
and developers for other uses.
In 1991, Congress directed the Department of Defense to conduct a nationwide survey of
Cold War-related resources under its jurisdiction. That effort is ongoing and has resulted
in a number of topical surveys, some of which have been released to the public and are
listed in the Bibliography. Other surveys have been started but not completed; some have
been completed but not released to the public. There are others whose status is uncertain.
In addition, some state historic preservation offices have conducted similar surveys of
Cold War properties within their states, or have received cultural resource management
reports and surveys of Cold War resources at particular installations. In summary, then,
there is no single, comprehensive survey of property types associated with the Cold War.
Instead, there is a multiplicity of surveys and reports that vary widely in the
comprehensiveness of their historic contexts and the degree of detail in their property
inventories. Some of the reports and surveys are available on Web sites, while others can
be seen only in state or federal agency libraries. Persons who wish to nominate
properties to the National Register of Historic Places, or for designation as National
Historic Landmarks, may therefore face numerous challenges in conducting research. In
addition, properties may have been listed in the National Register or designated as
National Historic Landmarks that have clear associations with the Cold War that were not
part of the documentation for the nomination or the designation.
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National Historic Landmarks
The Secretary of the Interior has designated the following Cold War-related resources as
National Historic Landmarks.
Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 Military Reservation, Pima County, Arizona
(designated on April 1 9, 1 994)
This is the only remaining Titan II ICBM site, out of fifty-four that were operational
between 1963 and 1987 during the Cold War. The site includes the liquid-fueled missile
launch facilities and has retained or reacquired all of the above- and below-ground
command and control components as well as the missile silo. Under provisions of the
SALT I treaty, all of the Titan II missile sites except this one were destroyed over a five-
year period beginning in 1982. The site is today the Titan Missile Museum and is open to
the public.
B Reactor, Richland, Benton County, Washington (designated on August 19, 2008)
The B Reactor at the Hanford site in Washington was the world's first production-scale
nuclear reactor. It was constructed in 1943-1944 for the Manhattan Project and it
produced the plutonium for the world's first nuclear test at the Trinity site near
Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, and for the atomic bomb exploded over
Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The reactor served as the model for other nuclear
reactors designed and constructed during the early years of the Cold War. The reactor is
open for guided tours on specified dates between April and September.
Eight-Foot High-Speed Tunnel, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
(designated on October 3, 1985)
This wind tunnel was completed in 1936 under authority of the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics, to test scale models of aircraft as well as full-size aircraft
parts. It was the most vibration- free wind tunnel in the world at the time of its
construction. A 1 6,000-horsepower electric fan produced an airstream flowing at
Mach .9, almost the speed of sound. The tunnel was used to test and perfect high-
performance aircraft during World War II and the Cold War. It is now used for storage
and is not open to the public.
Eisenhower National Historic Site, Adams County, Pennsylvania (designated on May
23, 1966)
Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, bought this farm near Gettysburg in 1950 as
a retirement home. Service as NATO commander and president delayed their retirement
plans, however. After Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack, the farm served as the temporary
White House as he recuperated. Throughout his presidency, he escaped to the farm
whenever he could and met with staff and world leaders there, including Nikita
Khrushchev during the Cold War. The Eisenhowers donated the site to the National Park
Service in 1967. It has been open to the public since 1980.
Experimental Breeder Reactor No. I, Idaho National Engineering Lab, Butte County,
Idaho (designated December 21, 1965)
65
This facility generated the world's first electricity from atomic energy. Construction
began in 1949 and the reactor was installed early in 1951. On December 20, 1951,
experimenters harvested atomic energy for the first time and the next day the reactor
produced enough electricity to light the facility. This was also the world's first breeder
reactor and the first to use plutonium as a fuel. The reactor is open to the public between
Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Fort David A. Russell (Francis E. Warren Air Force Base), Laramie County,
Wyoming (designated on May 15, 1975)
Francis E. Warren Air Force Base evolved from a frontier infantry and cavalry outpost in
the 19th century to a strategic missile site during the Cold War. In 1960, Warren became
the first fully operational Atlas ICBM squadron, and two years later, Minuteman I
replaced the Atlas missiles there. Minuteman III missiles replaced the earlier models in
1975, and Peacekeepers arrived in 1986. Although the ending of the Cold War reduced
the numbers of strategic missiles in the nation's arsenal, Warren remains the largest
strategic missile site in the United States. The Warren ICBM/Heritage Museum is open
to the public.
Fort Hancock and the Sandy Hook Proving Ground Historic District, Monmouth
County, New Jersey (designated on December 17, 1982)
This historic district contains a variety of resources, not all of which are related to the
Cold War. The district played a significant role in the development of advanced
weaponry and radar, helped guard New York City and the harbor from 1895 to 1974, and
is also the site of the Spermacetti Cove No. 2 Life-Saving Station, one of the earliest such
stations established by the federal government.
Full-Scale Wind Tunnel, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
(designated on October 3, 1985)
The Full-Scale Wind Tunnel was designed to test actual aircraft, in contrast with the
nearby Eight-Foot High-Speed Tunnel, which tested scale models and components.
Completed in 1931, the tunnel was 440 feet long, 230 feet wide, and 95 feet tall. Aircraft
were tested to calculate the air-drag penalties of exposed struts, rivet heads, wheels, and
other components before, during, and after World War II. Today Old Dominion
University uses the tunnel to improve the design of aircraft, automobiles, and trucks.
General George C. Marshall House, Loudoun County, Virginia (designated on June 1 9,
1996)
Known as Dodona Manor, this is the only house that George C. Marshall ever owned.
His wife purchased it in 1941 to serve first as a weekend retreat and then as a retirement
home after Marshall served as army chief of staff during World War II. Immediately
after retiring from the Army, however, Marshall received a call at the house from
President Harry S Truman asking him to serve as Secretary of State. Marshall is best
known, in terms of his postwar career, as the architect of the European Recovery Program,
called the Marshall Plan. Dodona Manor has been restored — many of the contributions
toward its preservation came from gratefijl Europeans — and is open to the public.
66
Harry S Truman National Historic Site (Harry S Truman Historic District),
Independence, Jackson County, Missouri (designated on November 11, 1971)
The Truman house at 219 North Delaware Street, Truman's home from 1919 until his
death in 1972), is the core of the site and district. Truman served as President of the
United States from the death of President Franklin D. Rooseveh in 1945 until 1953 — the
earliest years of the Cold War — and gave final authorization for the first and only uses of
atomic weapons in warfare. The house is open to the public.
Kennedy Compound, Barnstable County, Massachusetts (designated on November 28,
1972)
The Kennedy Compound contains the three summer homes of President John F. Kennedy,
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and their father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.
During John F. Kennedy's tenure as president, and while Robert F. Kennedy served as
attorney general and his brother's principal advisor, several of the Cold War's most
dangerous moments occurred, especially the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile
Crisis. The houses are not open to the public.
Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia (designated on October 5, 1992)
Constructed in 1941-1942 to house the rapidly expanding War Department at the
beginning of World War II, the Pentagon became the best-known symbol of American
military might during the Cold War years. Constructed with 6,240,000 square feet of
office space, it was then the largest such building in the world. Here the Secretary of
Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have their offices.
Space Launch Complex 10, Vandenburg Air Force Base, Santa Barbara County,
California (designated on June 23, 1986)
The launch complex was constructed in 1958 to test Thor ballistic missiles and train their
military operators. From 1965 to 1980, the site supported early launches of the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program, using launch vehicles based on the Thor missile design.
USS Nautilus, New London County, Connecticut (designated on May 20, 1982)
President Harry S Truman laid the keel of Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered
submarine, on June 14, 1952, at Groton, Connecticut. Nautilus was launched on January
21, 1954, and got under way on nuclear power on January 17, 1955. On August 3, 1958,
the submarine became the first vessel to sail under the North Pole. Nautilus was
decommissioned on March 3, 1980. The submarine has been open to the public since
April 11, 1986.
Westminster College Gymnasium, Callaway County, Missouri (designated on May 23,
1968)
In October 1945, President Harry S Truman invited former British prime minister
Winston Churchill to give several lectures at Westminster College in Truman's home
state of Missouri. Churchill traveled to the United States in February 1946, having
planned a Florida vacation, then went by train from Washington to Missouri with Truman.
On March 5, 1946, in the college gymnasium, Churchill delivered his speech, which was
broadcast by radio throughout the United States. He had entitled the address "The
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Sinews of Peace," but a passage in which he proclaimed in reference to Soviet influence
in Europe that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent," it became known as
the "Iron Curtain" speech.
White House, Washington, D.C. (designated on December 19, 1960)
Presidents Harry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B.
Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush
directed American political and military strategy while in residence at the White House.
There, also, they met with Soviet leaders, negotiated treaties and agreements, and worked
their way through such events as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Oval Office was the
scene of many important Cold War-related addresses by several presidents.
Whittaker Chambers Farm, Carroll County, Maryland (designated on May 17, 1988)
Also known as Pipe Creek Farm, this was the home of the former Communist who played
a key role in the conviction for perjury of Alger Hiss, a State Department official who
attempted to pass secrets to the Soviet Union. Most famously. Hiss gave Chambers
documents on a roll of microfilm that Chambers concealed in a hollowed-out pumpkin in
the pumpkin patch on the farm; the documents became known as "The Pumpkin Papers"
when Chambers turned them over to the House Un-American Activities Committee in
1948. The farm is private property, not open to the public.
X-10 Reactor, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Roane County, Tennessee (designated
on December 21,1 965)
Constructed in 1942-1943, the X-10 was the first nuclear reactor built for continuous
operation and experimentation. It went into operation on November 4, 1943, and used
neutrons emitted in the fission of uranium-235 to convert uranium-238 into a new
element, plutonium-239. The reactor supplied the first significant amounts of plutonium
to the Los Alamos laboratory. After the war ended, X-10 became the world's first
facility to produce radioactive isotopes for peacetime use, including radioisotopes to treat
cancer and for other medical uses.
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National Historic Landmarks Study List
Based on research conducted for this theme study, these properties appear to have strong
associations with nationally significant topics within the Cold War context, although their
current documentation does not discuss the Cold War in detail. Further study of the Cold
War-related sites inventory as it becomes available will likely uncover additional
resources potentially eligible for designation.
Greenbrier Hotel, Greenbrier County, West Virginia (nuclear-war shelter for Congress,
1950s and later); designated a National Historic Landmark on June 21, 1990.
Harry S Truman National Historic Site, Jackson County, Missouri (Truman Home
before, during, and after presidency, early 1950s); listed in the National Register of
Historic Places on May 31, 1 985.
Kennedy Compound, Barnstable County, Massachusetts (John F. Kennedy Summer
White House, 1960s); listed in the National Register of Historic Places on November 28,
1972.
Little White House, Monroe County, Florida (Truman Summer White House, 1 946-
1949); listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 12, 1974.
Savannah, Newport News City, Virginia (nuclear-powered merchant marine vessel
associated with the federal "Atoms for Peace" program, late 1950s); designated as a
National Historic Landmark on July 1, 1991.
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Bibliography
This is a bibliography of secondary Hterature sources specifically related to inventories of
Cold War-related sites, chosen in order to provide context for evaluating the relative
significance of such sites and resources.
The first section lists general works that give overviews of the history of the Cold War;
the evolution of the nuclear weapons complex, including the creation, manufacture, and
testing of those weapons; and the evolution of the aircraft and ballistic missile systems
designed to deliver nuclear weapons to their targets, as well as the missile and radar
systems designed to defend the United States.
Inventories of Cold War-related sites in the United States are presented in the second
section. The inventories were compiled as part of a nationwide survey of sites primarily
related to national defense, training, radar, missile systems. Air Force bases, research and
development, and Navy guided-missile and communications systems.
The third section lists selected cultural resource management site reports and publications
on related subjects. These reports typically contain overviews of the Cold War era in
which the facility was constructed; historic contexts specific to each facility; and
inventories of the buildings, sites, structures, objects, and districts related to the facility.
The bibliography and inventory are necessarily works in progress and can never be "finaf
because new studies and inventories are always forthcoming. Almost daily, new ones are
completed, published, and posted to or removed from Web sites. The following listings
include works available in one form or another as of early in 201 1 . Researchers are
encouraged to search the Internet and to contact the relevant service branches, federal and
state preservation offices, and military installations.
GENERAL
This is not intended to be a comprehensive list but rather a guide to selected works that
provide a broad context for the Cold War era with regard to its history, weapons, and
defense and delivery systems.
Berhow, Mark. U.S. Strategic and Defensive Missile Systems, 1950-2004. Oxford, UK:
Osprey Publishing, 2005. The fixed-launch-site strategic and defensive missile systems
of the United States are discussed and illustrated in this book.
Borstelman, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the
Global Arena. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. The author describes
how the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War affected each other not only in the
United States but on the global stage as the United States and the Soviet Union competed
for influence in the nonwhite nations of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Juxtaposing
related events at home and abroad, Borstelman illustrates the clash between American
ideals of freedom with the lack of their application in the United States.
70
Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb 's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of
the Atomic Age. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. The author
discusses the diverse reactions to the emerging nuclear era between 1945 and 1950.
Specifically, he describes how the Bomb affected moral, religious, literary, scientific, and
philosophical beliefs in a short period of time.
Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Surxnval: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty
Years. New York: Random House, 1988. Bundy, who served under presidents Kennedy
and Johnson as a national security advisor, describes the choices that United States and
Soviet leaders made regarding the development and use of atomic weapons. Writing
during the last stages of the Cold War, Bundy was critical of President Ronald Reagan's
"Star Wars" defensive system proposals.
Craig, Campbell, and Fredrik Logevall. America 's Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. This study explores the connection
between the Cold War and American domestic politics and economics. The authors
argue that the Cold War lasted as long as it did in part because of American insecurities
that resulted in the exaggeration of external threats, which in turn lead to misadventures
that were extremely costly in terms of treasure and lives.
Gaddis, John Lewis. Tlie Cold War: A New History. New York, NY: The Penguin Press,
2005. Gaddis, an eminent scholar of the Cold War, untangles the complex global history
of the era in this concise study. The book provides a broad overview of the Cold War
and the roles of American and Soviet leaders in its crucial events from the beginnings to
the end.
Herkin, Greg. The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945-1950.
New York: Vintage Books, 1982. The author discusses American policies toward the
development and use of nuclear weapons from the last months of World War II to the
decision to build the hydrogen bomb. He contends that nuclear weapons failed as
bargaining chips in diplomacy and led to the arms race between the United States and the
Soviet Union.
Herring, George. America 's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975.
4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. The history of America's involvement in
Vietnam, including its military, diplomatic, and political aspects, is the topic of this book.
Kwon, Heonik. 77?^ Other Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
According to the author, the global struggle known as the Cold War was not only a
conflict between the two superpowers but also a simultaneous and slow dissolution of a
complex political and social order that resulted in vicious civil wars that frequently had
less to do with the global conflict than with local and regional changes.
71
LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-96. New York: McGraw
Hill, 1996. The author focuses on diplomacy between the United States and the Soviet
Union and its role in the causes and consequences of the Cold War.
Leffler, Melvyn. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman
Administration and the Cold War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993. In
this study, the author traces the development of national security policy during the
Truman administration as the president and his advisors sought to use American power to
create a global environment compatible with American interests. They also endeavored
to counter the serious threats posed by Soviet forces in Eastern Europe and elsewhere in
part through such initiatives as the Marshall Plan, the promotion of economic recovery in
Japan, and the commitment of troops to defend South Korea.
, and Odd Ame Westad, eds. Tire Cambridge Histojy of the Cold War. 3
vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010. This expansive history is
international in scope and presents the global dynamics of the Cold War in the evolving
geopolitical, ideological, economic, and socio-political environment of the twentieth
century. It discusses demography, consumption, women, youth, science, technology,
ethnicity, and race as they relate to the Cold War.
Leonard, Barry, ed. History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1945-1972. 2
vols. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 2005. This work
analyzes the strategies that the United States and the Soviet Union each employed to
defend against nuclear missile and aircraft attacks, and the missile and air defense
systems that each side developed during the Cold War through 1972.
Loeber, Charles R. Building the Bombs: A History of the Nuclear Weapons Complex.
2nd ed. Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories, 2005. This work gives a site-
by-site history of the development of the nuclear weapons complex, including the
research, testing, and manufacturing processes.
Logevall, Fredrik, and Andrew Preston, eds. Nixon in the World: American Foreign
Relations, 1969-1977. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. The authors describe
the effects of hysterical anticommunism and American military actions overseas,
including the deaths, financial costs, and destabilized nations that were the consequences
of the Cold War. The policies of the era resuhed in the limiting of political debate, the
authors argue, while placing the United States in the position of supporting repressive
regimes.
Matlock, Jack. Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended. New York: Random
House, 2005. The author, formerly an advisor to Reagan on Soviet and European affairs,
offers an insider's view of the end of the Cold War and the relationship between Reagan
and Gorbachev. He concludes that Reagan's surprising flexibility and Gorbachev's
essential humanity contributed largely to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the
conclusion of the Cold War.
72
May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. New
York: Basic Books, 2008. The 1950s is typically viewed as a period of idealized
domestic tranquility, but the fears and tensions of the Cold War cast a shadow over this
supposedly happy scene. The author argues that the withdrawal into the security of the
home was a response to the era's political insecurities and that the conservative social
norms of the time were related to Cold War policies.
May, Ernest R., and Philip D. Zelikow, eds. Tlie Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House
during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. In
the summer of 1 962, President Kennedy had a taping system installed in the Oval Office
and Cabinet Room. During the Cuban Missile Crisis that October, Kennedy secretly
recorded the many meetings and conversations that occurred as the crisis evolved. The
editors present a fascinating inside view of what may have been the most dangerous event
of the Cold War, augmenting transcripts of the tapes with Soviet documents and the
memoirs and notes of those involved.
Naftali, Timothy, and Aleksandr Fursenko. "One Hell of a Gamble ": Khrushchev,
Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: Norton, 1977. The authors, one of whom
is an American scholar and the other a Russian, utilize recently opened Soviet archives to
illustrate the iimer workings of the Politburo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The result
is the story of the crisis from the Soviet viewpoint.
Neufeld, Jacob. The Development of Ballistic Missiles in the United States Air Force,
1945-1960. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1990. This book is in print,
and is also available on line at the Air Force Historical Studies Office Web site,
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af mil/Publications/fulltext/ballistic_missiles_in_the_usaf
pdf Neufeld focuses on the first generation of ballistic missiles (Atlas, Titan, and Thor),
and describes the difficult technological competition with the Soviets. The Air Force also
had to overcome interservice rivalries, budgetary constraints, administrative
complications, and engineering problems. This first series of long-range strategic
missiles was the forerunner of the modem U.S. nuclear arsenal, especially Minuteman
and cruise missiles.
Sarotte, Mary. 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2009. The author argues that the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the reunification of Germany basically reestablished a new version of the Cold War status
quo — ^N ATO versus post-Soviet Russia instead of the West versus the Soviet Union. She
credits West German chancellor Helmut Kohl as the man who outmaneuvered other
leaders to annex East Germany through adroit diplomacy and offers of aid to the
collapsing Soviet economy.
Schaffel, Kenneth. 77?^ Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of
Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960. Washington, DC: U.S. Air Force Office of Air
Force History, 1991 . This book is in print, and is also available on line at the Air Force
Historical Studies Office Web site,
http://www.airforcehistorv.hq.afmil/Publications/Annotations/schaffelemerging.htm. It
73
traces the development of defenses to counter bomber attacks, the primary nuclear
weapons delivery system before the advent of ICBMs in the 1960s. By the end of the
1950s, the defenses included an early warning radar network stretching across Alaska and
Canada, as well as radar picket ships, ocean platforms, and ground observers. Defensive
weapons included antiaircraft artillery and air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. A
computer-driven command and control system coordinated the defensive array. Over the
decade, the defensive network, weapons, and control system evolved to meet new Soviet
challenges until ICBMs became the principal threat.
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarihyism in America. Boston, MA: Little
Brown, 1998. This study expands the concept of McCarthyism beyond merely the
activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy to include various professional anticommunists
who maneuvered federal officials into adopting their crusade to confound dissent with
disloyalty.
Suri, Jeremi. Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Detente has been considered a strategic Western
approach to Soviet power—agreeing to maintain the status quo to avoid instability. The
author contends that social unrest in capitalist nations such as the United States and
France as well as in communist countries such as China and Russia resulted in leaders
everywhere withdrawing or withholding political power from the public, or applying the
principles of detente internally as well as internationally.
Titus, A. Costandina. Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics.
Rev. ed. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2001. This volume, which first appeared in
1 986 and has been updated, focuses primarily on the Nevada Test Site and vicinity. It
examines the effects of nuclear testing (especially radiation) affected the health of not
only military personnel but also civilians and livestock downwind of the test site. The
book also examines how the government, specifically the Pentagon, the Atomic Energy
Commission, and the courts failed to inform, protect, and compensate the victims of
atomic testing.
Wamock, A. Timothy, Daniel L. Haulman, Forrest L. Marion, and Jeffrey P. Sahaida
(Frederick J. Shaw, ed.) Locating Air Force Base Sites: History 's Legacy. Washington,
DC: Air Force History and Museum Program, 2004. Available as a PDF file at the
WorldCat Web site, http://www.worldcat.org/title/locating-air-force-base-sites-historvs-
legacv/oclc/3 1 8682361 ?title=&detail=&page=frame&urHhttp%3 A%2F%2Fhandle.dtic.
mil%2F100.2%2FADA476351%26checksum%3Decd08bea0186ca2fdb745dfdbb5738c7
&linktvpe=digitalObiect. This work consists of a historic context tracing the history of
Air Force bases from 1907 to 2003 and documents their changes in function over time.
The historic context is divided into four chronological chapters (1907-1947; 1947-1960;
1961-1987; 1988-2003), with the middle two devoted to the Cold War era.
Westad, Odd Ame. Tlie Global Cold War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2007. The author shows how the global Cold War of the twentieth century laid the
foundations for most of the next century's international conflicts, including the "war on
74
terror." Because the United States and the Soviet Union alike practiced interventionism
in the Third World, they produced resentments that constitute the true legacy of the Cold
War.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COLD WAR RESOURCES INVENTORY
Most of the service-wide inventories and contexts listed below were compiled under the
auspices of the Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Program, which
the Defense Appropriations Act of 1991 established. One of the program's nine task
areas is the Cold War Project, which seeks to "inventory, protect, and conserve [DoD's]
physical and literary property and relics" associated with the Cold War. Some of the
inventories and contexts were compiled as special projects by other federal agencies, or
under the mandates of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Documents
devoted to guidance concerning resource management and recordation are also included.
Some of these reports can be found on the Internet, while others are in the files of federal
or state historic preservation offices, or at the respective bases. Some may be found in
libraries listed on the WorldCat Web site, http://www.worldcat.org,, or for sale by the
publishers, Amazon, or other book dealers.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 1 1, 2001, however, the Department of Defense
and the armed services have reconsidered whether all of the information in these
inventories should be publicly available. In some cases, it is likely that the researcher
will find that inventories formerly available on the Internet are no longer available, or
that certain sections or chapters have been redacted.
Best, Brooke V., Katherine Grandine, and Stacie Y. Webb. Navy Cold War
Communication Context: Resources Associated with the Navy 's Communication Program,
1946-1989. Frederick, MD: R. Christopher Goodwin and Associates, 1997. Available as
a PDF file at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Web site,
www.poital.navfac.naw.mil. The study contains chapters on methodology, the history of
the Navy's role in the Cold War communication program between 1946 and 1989, and
property types associated with the Navy's shore-based communication program. It also
includes a bibliography and an inventory of 37 sites associated with the communication
program during the Cold War. Each entry includes the site name and location as well as a
brief narrative history.
Best, Brooke V., Eliza H. Edwards, and Leo Hirrel. Navy Cold War Guided Missile
Context: Resources Associated with the Navy 's Guided Missile Program, 1946-1989.
Frederick, MD: R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., 1995. Available as a PDF file
at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Web site, www.portal.navfac.navv. mil. The
context contains sections on methodology, a chronological overview, theme studies,
property types, evaluation criteria, and treatment options. The study also contains a
bibliography and several appendices, including an inventory of 39 installations associated
with the Navy's Cold War guided-missile program, arranged alphabetically by state. Each
entry gives the installation name and locafion, the period of significance, relevant themes,
and a narrative overview of the installation and its functions.
75
Department of Defense Legacy Cold War Project. Coming in from the Cold: Military
Heritage in the Cold War. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office,
1994. Available for download on the U.S. Military Liaison Mission Association Web site,
www.usmlm.org/home/coldwar/coldwar.html. This report discusses the formation of the
Cold War Task Area and its progress in fulfilling the mandates of the Defense
Appropriations Act of 1991 for inventorying DoD Cold War sites and resources. At the
end of the document is a useful time line of the Cold War through 1991 .
. Interim Guidance: Treatment of Cold War Historic Properties for U.S. Air
Force Installations. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1993.
Available as a Word document on the Air Force Center for Engineering and the
Environment Web site, http://www.afcee.af mil/shared/media/document/ AFD-070828-
060.doc. This publication gives guidance for the treatment and preservation of Cold War
properties, and includes a preliminary list of property types.
Gaither, Steve. Looking Between Trinity and the Wall: Army Materiel Command Cold
War Material Culture within the Continental United States, 1945-1989. Piano, TX: Geo-
Marine, Inc., 1997. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library,
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; also available as a PDF file at the Scribd Web site,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40 171141 /Trinity-and-the-Wall. The study contains a Cold
War historic context, a history of the Army Materiel Command and its predecessors, and
the themes associated with the AMC during the Cold War. An appendix lists 3 1 3 Army
Materiel Command-related sites, including housing areas, command centers, depots,
arsenals, and manufacturing facilities.
Gregory, Carrie J., and Martyn D. Tagg. Recording the Cold War: Identifying and
Collecting Cold War Resources Data on Military Installations. Tucson, AZ: Statistical
Research, Inc., 2008. Available as a PDF file at the DoD Environment, Safety and
Occupational Health Network and Information Exchange Web site,
http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/upload/07-285_Final.pdf This is a Department of Defense
Cold War Legacy project (07-285) to assist in identifying facilities and documentation,
creating a systematic approach to compiling and analyzing data, and assessing costs for
each project. For the purposes of the study, four Air Force bases were identified and
analyzed: Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ; Hill AFB, UT; Kirtland AFB, NM; and Vandenberg
AFB, CA. The introduction offers a useful history of the Legacy program and includes a
list of contexts and inventories that had been completed by 2008.
Hoffecker, John F., Mandy Whorton, and Casey R. Buechler. Cold War Historic
Properties of the 21st Space Wing, Air Force Space Command. Pensacola, FL: Cold War
Workshop, Eglin Air Force Base, 1996. Available as a PDF file on the Department of
Energy Scientific and Technical Information Web site at
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.isp;isessionid=lB6E0E3B09E22469AD7C1339D
D237CFE?purl=/2 1 1 543-ifJ7vE/webviewable/. This brief ( 1 5-page) report describes
generally the historic contexts and facilities at several air stations and bases: Cape Cod
76
AS (MA), Cavalier AS (ND), Clear AS (AK), Eldorado AS (TX), Peterson AFB (CO),
and Thule AB (Greenland).
Isemann, James L. "To Detect, To Deter, To Defend: The Distant Early Warning (DEW)
Line and Early Cold War Defense Policy, 1953-1957." Ph.D. Diss. Manhattan, KS:
Kansas State University, 2009. Available as a PDF file at the Kansas State University
Web site, www.krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/2097/2 161/1 /J ameslsemann2009.pdf
This dissertation discusses the planning and construction of the system, which was
designed ostensibly to protect the civilian population but more importantly to safeguard
the Strategic Air Command's retaliatory-strike bombers. The chapter on construction
contains descriptions, plans, and photographs of some of the main, auxiliary, and
intermediate DEW Line stations.
Kuranda, Kathryn M., Katherine E. Grandine, Brian Cleven, Thomas W. Davis, and
Nathaniel Patch. Historic Context for Army Fixed-Wing Airfields, 1903- J 989. Frederick,
MD: R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, 2002. Available as a PDF file at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; also available as a
PDF file at the DoD Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Network and
Information Exchange Web site, http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/upload/Armv-Airfield-
Historic-Context.pdf The study contains a historic context for Army aviation from the
earliest days through the end of the Cold War, focusing on changes in aircraft technology
and airfield development. Selected property types at various bases are described and
their integrity is discussed. Property types include landing fields, landing aids, radio
buildings, operations buildings, flight control towers, fire stations, hangars and
maintenance buildings, paint shops and storage buildings, general storage buildings,
parachute buildings, aerial photography buildings, aircraft fiiel storage facilities, and
wash racks. Five case studies are offered in an appendix (Aberdeen Proving Ground,
MD; Fort Hood, TX; Fort Rucker, AL; Fort Sill, OK; and Fort Stewart, GA), and another
appendix lists sixty-five currently (200 1 ) active Army airfields nationwide.
Kuranda, Kathryn M., Katherine E. Grandine, and Deborah K. Carman. Support and
Utility Structures and Facilities (1917-1946): Oveniew, Inventory, and Treatment Plan.
Frederick, MD: R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, 1995. Prepared for the
Department of the Navy. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC)
library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. This study describes and
inventories structures and facilities at both Navy and Army installations. Although most
of the resources predate the Cold War, their use continued into the Cold War era.
Lavin, Mary K. Thematic Study and Guidelines: Identification and Evaluation of U.S.
Army Cold War Era Military-Industrial Historic Properties. Fairfax, VA: Home
Engineering, 1998. Available as a PDF file at the Defense Technical Information Center
Web site, http://www.dtic.mil/cai-
bin/GetTRDoc?AD-ADA353034«S:Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf The study
contains a historic context of the Army's military-industrial history during the Cold War
to provide the overview necessary to identify, evaluate, and manage the Army's Cold
War-related resources. Property types and facility types are identified, a list of Army
77
posts is provided, and two time lines note the changes in the Army's organization and
major events and Army activities during the Cold War.
Lewis, Karen, Katherine J. Roxlau, Lori E. Rhodes, Paul Boyer, and Joseph S. Murphey.
United States Air Force Air Combat Command and the Legacy of the Cold War: A
Systemic Study of Air Combat Command Cold War Material Culture. Laramie, WY:
TRC Mariah Associates, Inc., 1995. Prepared for Headquarters, Air Combat Command,
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and available at the ACC library as a PDF file
containing three volumes; not available on line. The first volume contains a historic
context of the Cold War and its effects on the United States, especially on the nation's air
defense system. The second volume contains baseline inventories of Cold War material
culture at twenty-seven Air Force bases {see also Karen J. Weitze, Cold War
Infrastructure for Air Defense: Tire Fighter and Command Missions below). The bases
are: Barksdale AFB, LA; Beale AFB, CA; Cannon AFB, NM; Castle AFB, CA; Davis-
Monthan AFB, AZ; Dyess AFB, TX; Ellsworth AFB and Badlands AFR, SD; Fairchild
AFB, WA; Griffiss AFB, NY; Holloman AFB and Melrose AFR, NM; Homestead AFB,
FL; Howard AFB and Balboa AFR, Panama; K. L Sawyer AFB, MI; Langley AFB, VA;
Little Rock AFB, AK; Loring AFB, ME; MacDill AFB and Avon Park AFR, FL;
McConnell AFB, KS; Minot AFB, ND; Moody AFB and Grand Bay AFR, GA;
Mountain Home AFB and Saylor Creek AFR, ID; Nellis AFB, NV, and Cuddeback AFR,
CA; Offutt AFB, NB; Pope AFB, NC; Seymour Johnson AFB and Dare County AFR,
NC; Shaw AFB and Poinsett AFR, SC; Whiteman AFB, MO. The third volume contains
a summary report and final programmatic recommendations relating to the resources on
each base that are potentially eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic
Places.
Lonnquest, John C, and David F. Winkler. To Defend and Deter: The Legacy of the
United States Cold War Missile System. Washington, DC: Department of Defense,
Legacy Resource Management Program Cold War Project, 1 996. Available as a PDF file
at the WorldCat Web site, http://www.worldcat.org/title/to-defend-and-deter-the-legacv-
of-the-united-states-cold-war-missile-
program/oclc/227865728?title-&detail=&page-frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhandle.dti
c.mil%2F100.2%2FADA337549%26checksum%3D541e88d6c79780fda5a3ea237e2099
78&linktvpe=digitalObiect. The study contains a history of the Cold War missile system,
descriptions of the various defensive and ballistic missile systems, a history of missile
development and deployment sites, a chronology, a bibliography, and a state-by-state
inventory of intercontinental ballistic missile and air defense missile sites. Each
inventory entry includes the site name, missile type, installation, site location, military
service branch, dates of active service, and current status (as of 1996).
Louis Berger Group, Inc. Historic Context Statement: The United States Na\y in the
Cold War. Draft. Morristown, NJ: Louis Berger Group, Inc., 2009. Available as a PDF
file at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Web site, www.portal.navfac.navv.mil.
This report was compiled in compliance with provisions of the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1 966 and contains a two-part historic context. The first section is an
overview of the Cold War and the role of the Chief of Naval Operations in the Navy's
78
approach to countering the Soviet threats. The second section focuses on the Navy's
strategic responses to developments in terms of the "platforms" employed for deterrence,
control of the seas, communications, and intelligence. The appendix presents a list of
property types (excluding objects such as aircraft, missiles, and vessels) and
recommendations for evaluating integrity and National Register of Historic Places
significance.
Morgan, Mark L., and Mark A. Berhow. Rings of Supersonic Steel: Air Defenses of the
United States Army J 950-1 979, An Introduction And Site Guide. 2nd ed. Bodega Bay,
CA: Hole in the Head Press, 2002. This study is available from the publisher; a 3rd
edition is forthcoming. An excerpt from the book may be seen on the Google Books
Web site at
http://books.google.conVbooks?id=vagliMKPYrkC&pa=PP3&dq=Mark+Morgan+Nike+
Quick+Look&hl=en&ei=LFtUTeTlGsqr8AaAk8D6CA&sa=X&oi=book result&ct=resu
lt«S:resnum=l&sqi=2«S:ved=0CDYO6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Mark%20Morgan%20Nik
e%20Ouick%20Look&f=false. The extract contains historic contexts for various
installations as well as photographs, maps, diagrams, and other graphic materials.
Morrison, Dawn A., and Susan I. Enscore. The Built Environment of Cold War Era
Senicewomen. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, Legacy Resource Management
Program Cold War Project, 1996. Available as a PDF file at the WoridCat Web site,
http://www.worldcat.org/title/built-environment-of-cold-war-era-
servicewomen/oclc/227900613?title=«fedetail=&page=frame&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fhand
le.dtic.mil%2F100.2%2FADA455179%26checksum%3D3fc814ffD6766e54833556f4e4a
23de9&linktvpe=digitalObiect. The study presents a service-wide historic context
showing how the accommodation of women into the armed services affected the
military's built environment. It presents several property types, largely related to housing,
and includes plans and drawings.
Murdock, Scott D., Mikel Travisano, Marsh Prior, and Julian Adams. Ch'er-the-Horizon
Backscatter Radar NetM'ork: Maine, Idaho, Oregon, and California. Seattle, WA:
Historic American Engineering Record, 2008. HAER No. ME-98. Available as a PDF
file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not
available on line. This study contains photographs, historic contexts, descriptions, and
significance statements for buildings and other radar facilities.
Pedrotty, Michael A., Julie L. Webster, and Aaron R. Chmiel. Historical and
Architectural Overview of Military Aircraft Hangars; A General History, Thematic
Typology, and Inventory of Aircraft Hangars Constructed on Department of Defense
Installations. Champaign, IL: U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research
Laboratories, 1999. Prepared for Headquarters, Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley
Air Force Base, Virginia. The study's objectives were to identify and describe principal
hangar types constructed before 1 996; to document the origins, locations, and numbers of
hangars; and to provide a context for understanding the aviation and construction history
of the major hangar types. The report includes a historic context through the Cold War
era, a database of military hangars, and standard hangar drawings. As of January 2010,
79
the Introduction, Chapter 1 (The Early Years), Chapters 5-7 (The Cold War; Military
Hangar Typology, and Conclusions and Recommendations), Appendix A (Military
Hangar Database) and Appendix C (Abbreviations and Acronyms) are available as a PDF
file at the Federation of American Scientists Web site, http://www.fas.org/man/dod-
101/usaf/docs/webster/index.html. Chapters 2^ (The First World War, The Interwar
Years, and The Second World War) and Appendix B (Standard Hangar Drawings) are not
yet on line. The hangar database (Appendix A) includes Air Force, Army, Marine Corps,
and Navy installations nationwide. The database is presented twice: sorted alphabetically
by service and location; sorted by date of construction through 1996.
Shiman, Philip, and Julie L. Webster. Forging the Sword: Defense Production during the
Cold War. Champaign, IL: U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories,
1997. Available as a PDF file at the WorldCat Web site,
http://www.worldcat.org/title/forginR-the-sword-developing-leaders-for-the-air-
operations-
center/oclc/7426 1 2 1 2?title=&detail=&page-frame&urHhttp%3 A%2F%2Fhandle.dtic.mi
l%2F100.2%2FADA420573%26checksum%3Dbe6a3cc4c87cec913262d7d90d70c273&l
inktvpe=digitalObiect. Written under the auspices of the Cold War Task Area, this work
provides a historic context for the defense industry from its expansion for World War II
through the end of the Cold War. It includes a bibliography and a state-by-state
inventory of 64 DoD-owned industrial facilities. Each inventory entry gives the facility's
name and location, a brief history including changes in fiinction or product, and a list of
sources.
Temme, Virge J. For Want of a Home: A Study of Wherry and Capehart Military Family
Housing. Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD: Army Environmental Center, 1998. This
historic context study is available from the U.S. Army Environmental Center, ATTN:
SFIM-AEC- CDC, 5179 Hoadley Road, Aberdeen PG, MD 21010-5401, and is not
posted online. It was written as part of the 1990s Department of Defense review of the
history of the Cold War era. The U.S. Army contracted with the Construction
Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to prepare
this study of Wherry and Capehart housing at military installations nationwide. The
buildings were constructed during the period 1949-1964 in a military-private partnership
with development firms, to provide desperately needed housing for military families.
During the programs' lifespan, about 250,000 units were constructed; about 175,000
remained in existence in 1994.
Thompson, Scott, and Martyn D. Tagg. Identification and Categorization of Cold War-
Era Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation Property Types. Tucson, AZ:
Statistical Research, Inc., 2007. Prepared for Headquarters, Air Force Materiel
Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, and available at the Headquarters, Air
Combat Command (ACC), Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, library as a PDF file. It is
also available on line at the DoD Environment, Safety and Occupational Heahh Network
and Information Exchange Web site, www.denix.osd.mil/cr/upload/04-2 1 1 -Cold-War-
RDT-E.ppt. This is a Department of Defense Cold War Legacy project (04-21 1) to
advise in identifying and classifying research, development, testing, and evaluation
80
(RTD&E) property types to supplement the types listed in the 1993 DoD publication,
Interim Guidance: Treatment of Cold War Historic Properties for U.S. Air Force
Installations (noted above). For this study, the authors conducted research to identify
property types (buildings, structures, and sites) at nine Air Force, Army, and Navy
installations: Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD; Arnold AFB, TN; Dugway Proving
Ground, UT; Edwards AFB, CA; Hill AFB, UT; Holloman AFB, NM; Naval Air
Weapons Station, China Lake, CA; Wright-Patterson AFB, OH; and Yuma Proving
Ground, AZ. The resulting list of property types is to be used at all DoD RTD&E
installations for consistent categorization as future inventories of Cold War-era resources
are undertaken.
Weitze, Karen J. Cold War Infrastructure for Strategic Air Command: The Bomber
Mission. Sacramento, CA: KEA Environmental, Inc., 1999. Prepared for Headquarters,
Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and available at the
ACC library as a PDF file; not available on line. This report includes abstracts by
installation of alert facilities and infrastructure discussed within an illustrated context of
several property types and categories, including hangars, airfields, and related structures.
Recommendations are presented for resource management, including inventory and
documentation suggestions. The bibliography lists available inventories of Cold War
material culture at thirty-four Air Force bases {see also Karen Lewis et al., A Systemic
Study of Air Combat Command Cold War Material Culture above). The bases are:
Andrews AFB, MD; Barksdale AFB, LA; Beale AFB, CA; Cannon AFB, NM; Castle
AFB, CA; Charleston AFB, SC; Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ; Dover AFB, DE; Dyess AFB,
TX; Ellsworth AFB, SD; Fairchild AFB, WA; Grand Forks AFB, ND; Griffiss AFB, NY;
Holloman AFB, NM; Homestead AFB, FL; Howard AFB, Panama; K. L Sawyer AFB,
MI; Langley AFB, VA; Little Rock AFB, AK; Loring AFB, ME; MacDill AFB, FL;
McChord AFB, WA; McConnell AFB, KS; Minot AFB, ND; Moody AFB, GA;
Mountain Home AFB, ID; Nellis AFB, NV; Offlitt AFB, NB; Pope AFB, NC; Scott
AFB, IL; Seymour Johnson AFB, NC; Shaw AFB, SC; Travis AFB, CA; Whiteman
AFB, MO. Information in this study is updated and expanded in Historic Facilities
Groi</75 (2010) below.
. Cold War Infrastructure for Air Defense: Tlie Fighter and Command
Missions. Sacramento, CA: KEA Environmental, Inc., 1999. Available as a PDF file at
the Mobile Military Radar Web site, www.mobileradar.org/Documents/1999-l 1-
02132.pdf Prepared for Headquarters, Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base,
Virginia, this report includes abstracts by installation of fighter and command-and-
control alert facilities and infrastructure discussed within an illustrated context of seven
property types. Recommendations are presented for resource management, including
inventory and documentation suggestions. The bibliography lists available inventories of
Cold War material culture at thirty-four Air Force bases {see also Karen Lewis et al., A
Systemic Study of Air Combat Command Cold War Material Culture above). The bases
are: Andrews AFB, MD; Barksdale AFB, LA; Beale AFB, CA; Cannon AFB, NM;
Castle AFB, CA; Charleston AFB, SC; Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ; Dover AFB, DE;
Dyess AFB, TX; Ellsworth AFB, SD; Fairchild AFB, WA; Grand Forks AFB, ND;
Griffiss AFB, NY; Holloman AFB, NM; Homestead AFB, FL; Howard AFB, Panama;
81
K. I. Sawyer AFB, MI; Langley AFB, VA; Little Rock AFB, AK; Loring AFB, ME;
MacDill AFB, FL; McChord AFB, WA; McConnell AFB, KS; Minot AFB, ND; Moody
AFB, GA; Mountain Home AFB, ID; Nellis AFB, NV; Offutt AFB, NB; Pope AFB, NC;
Scott AFB, IL; Seymour Johnson AFB, NC; Shaw AFB, SC; Travis AFB, CA; Whiteman
AFB, MO. Information in this study is updated and expanded in Historic Facilities
GraM/?5 (2010) below.
. Historic Facilities Groups at Air Combat Command Installations: A
Comparative Evaluation of Selected Resources USAF-Wide. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine,
Inc., 2010. Prepared for Headquarters, Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley Air Force
Base, Virginia, and available at the ACC library as a PDF file; not available on line. The
study focuses primarily on the first half of the Cold War and on three prominent
programs: Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber alert, Air Defense Command fighter-
interceptor squadron (FIS) alert, and special weapons stockpile sites and operadonal
storage. The work is divided into two parts (SAC alert and FIS alert) and lists and
evaluates (with photographs) various sites for potential National Register of Historic
Places listing. A classified appendix treating nuclear weapons storage sites is a stand-
alone document (not included).
. Keeping the Edge: Air Force Materiel Command Cold War Context
(1945-1991). 3 vols. San Francisco, CA: ED AW, Inc., 2003. Available as a PDF file at
the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not
available on line. Volume 1 (Command Lineage, Scientific Achievement, and Major
Tenant Missions) contains a Cold War historic context and the history of the Air Force
Materiel Command and its evolving missions. Volume 2 (Installations and Facilities)
focuses on selected Air Force bases, their missions, and key facilities. The bases include
Arnold, Brooks, Edwards, Eglin, Hanscom, Hill, Kelly, Kirtland, Los Angeles,
McClellan, Robins, Tinker, Wright-Patterson, and the Air Force Research Laboratory in
Rome, NY. Volume 3 contains the index to Volumes 1 and 2. John C. Lonnquest began
the predecessor to this study in the 1 990s under the tentative title of Developing the
Weapons of War: Military Research and Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E)
during the Cold War. Lonnquest' s study was preliminary because of lack of funding;
Keeping the Edge is the product of new research and writing.
Winkler, David F. Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War
Defense Radar Program. Langley Air Force Base, VA: Headquarters Air Combat
Command, 1997. Available as a PDF file at the WorldCat Web site,
http://www.worldcat.org/title/searching-the-skies-the-legacv-of-the-united-states-cold-
war-defense-radar-
program/oclc/227856727?title=&detail=&page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhandle.dti
c.mil%2F 1 00.2%2FADA33 1 23 1 %26checksum%3D7 1 9384448ad87b 1 ed3b4d3aba8a5 1 f
d7&linktvpe=digitalObiect. This work presents a historic context for the use of radar in
air defense, beginning with earlier methods in 1918 and continuing through World War II
and the Cold War to 1994. A myriad of systems and networks, such as the DEW Line,
are discussed. The study includes a bibliography and a state-by-state inventory of about
82
300 sites of all types. Each inventory entry gives the name and location of the site and a
brief narrative history that includes the radar type used at the site.
. Training to Fight: Training and Education during the Cold War.
Washington, DC: Department of Defense, Legacy Resource Management Program Cold
War Project, and United States Air Force Air Combat Command, 1997. Available as a
PDF file at the WorldCat Web site, http://www.worldcat.ora/title/training-to-fight-
training-and-education-during-the-cold-
war/oclc/227907992?title=&detail=&page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhandle.dtic.mil
%2F100.2%2FADA371483%26checksum%3D7end00de0a850d3c9cbcc8ab626123f&li
nktvpe=digitalObiect. The study provides a historic context for military training
throughout American history to the end of the Cold War (1989). Its focus is primarily on
four training areas: indoctrination, technical, skill and readiness, and professional military
education. A bibliography is provided, as well as a state-by-state inventory of 1 67
training and education sites. Each inventory entry gives the name and location of the site,
as well as a brief history that includes the training function, and a short list of sources.
CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SITE REPORTS, SPECIFIC CONTEXT
STUDIES, AND NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS NOMINATIONS
This section is intended to provide the researcher with an overview of the variety of site-
specific cultural resource management reports that are available for study. Some of these
reports can be found on the Internet, while others are in the files of federal or state
historic preservation offices, or at the respective bases. Some may be found in libraries
listed on the WorldCat Web site, http://www.worldcat.org, or for sale by Amazon or
other book dealers. This section should be regarded as a sampling of the reports that are
available. Several of the studies are annotated here. Two National Historic Landmarks
nominations also are included to serve as models.
Altschul, Jeffrey H., and Steven D. Shelley. Cultural Resources Inventory of Eight Titan
Missile Silos in the Greater Tucson Area, Pima County, Arizona. Tucson, AZ: Statistical
Research, Inc., 1987. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC)
library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line.
Corbett, Michael. Architectural Study of Beale Air Force Base, Yuba County, California:
A Preliminary Survey and Historical Oven'iew of World War II and Cold War Era
Properties. Chico, CA: Dames and Moore, Inc., 1994. Available as a PDF file at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on
line. This draft study includes a historical overview of Beale AFB and a tabular
inventory and evaluation of buildings.
Denfeld, D. Colt, Jennifer Abel, and Dale Slaughter. The Cold War in Alaska: A
Management Plan for Cultural Resources, 1 994- 1 999. N.p., AK: U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Alaska District, 1994. Chapter 8 ("Nike Hercules Deactivated") of this book
can be found on the U.S. Army Alaska Web site at
http://www.usarak.aiTnv.mil/consei-vation/Nike%200perations%20in%20Alaska/Chapter
83
%208.pdf. A complete copy is not available on line. The extract includes historic
context, photographs, and a bibliography.
Department of Energy. Cultural Resource Management Plan, DOE Oak Ridge
Reser\>ation, Anderson and Roane Counties, Tennessee. Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Energy, 2001 . This report includes a history of the nuclear facilities at
Oak Ridge from the Manhattan Project through the Cold War. It also focuses in detail on
the most-significant facilities that contribute to the interpretation of the history of Oak
Ridge.
. Linking Legacies: Connecting the Cold War Nuclear Weapons Production
Process to Tlieir Environmental Consequences. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Energy, 1997. This volume gives an overview of the different aspects of nuclear
weapons production in the Cold War, from uranium mining, fiael fabrication, reactor
operations and production of fissile materials, to waste management. It also addresses
the nature and extent of environmental contamination at nuclear production sites.
Engel, Jeffrey A., Christina Slattery, Mary Ebeling, Erin Pogany, and Amy R. Squitieri.
The Missile Plains: Frontline of America 's Cold War. Historic Resource Study,
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota. Washington, DC: National
Park Service, 2003. Available as a PDF file at the National Park Service Web site,
http : //www . np s ■ go v/hi story /hi story /onl i ne_books/mi mi/his . htm . The study contains a
Cold War historic context that includes the history of the development and construction
of the site, photographs, and the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the
launch and control facilities in an appendix.
Enscore, Susan, Adam Smith, and Sunny Stone. Fort Bliss Main Post Early Cold War
BASOPS Building Inventory and Evaluation, 1951-63. Fort Bliss, TX: Conservation
Division, Directorate of Environment, 2006. Available as a PDF file at the Web site,
http://www.cecer.armv.mil/techreports/ERDC-CERL SR-Q6-53/ERDC-CERL SR-06-
53.pdf This report includes inventories (with photographs, maps, and drawings) of 1 60
Base Operations (BASOPS) buildings constructed at Fort Bliss Main Post between 1951
and 1963. Recommendations for eligibility for nomination to the National Register of
Historic Places (NRHP) were made based on the significance of the buildings and their
relative integrity. Because previous studies have identified the Fort Bliss properties that
are directly related to exceptionally important Army Cold War activities, this report
focuses on future determinations of eligibility for nomination to the NRHP.
Fulton, Jean, and Sony a Cooper. "Full Moral and Material Strength ": Tlie Early Cold
War Legacy at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico (ca. 1950-1960). Holloman Air
Force Base, NM: Holloman Air Force Base, Cultural Resources Publication No. 6, 1996.
Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force
Base, Virginia; not available on line. The study contains a World War II and Cold War-
Era historic context for the base, as well as photographs, inventory forms, and evaluations
of seventy-three buildings of which eleven were considered eligible for the National
Register of Historic Places.
84
Herdrich, David J. A Cultural Resource Assessment of the Ellsworth Air Force Base
Minuteman II Missile Range in Butte, Haakon, Jackson, Lawrence, Meade, Pennington,
and Perkins Counties, South Dakota. Champaign, IL: U.S. Army Construction
Engineering Research Laboratories, 1994. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat
Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. This
report concerns an archaeological survey carried out as the missile sites were being
deactivated.
Historic American Engineering Record. "Rabbit Creek White Alice Site, Anchorage,
Alaska, HAER AK-23." Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1987[?]. This report
and others like it, sometimes with photographs and plans, can be accessed by searching
the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog at www.loc.gov/pictures/.
Kendrick, Gregory. Last Line of Defense: Nike Missile Sites in Illinois. Denver, CO:
National Park Service, 1996. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command
(ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; also available on line at Ed Thelen's
Nike Missile Web site, http://ed-thelen.org/last-line.html. The study contains a Cold War
historic context, a history of the development and deployment of the Nike system, and
detailed descriptions of housing, administrative, and support buildings as well as of the
battery control and launch areas at two Nike missile bases: C-84 and SL-40 in Illinois,
near Barrington and Hecker, respectively.
. The Minuteman Missile. Denver, CO: National Park Service, 1995.
Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force
Base, Virginia; not available on line. This study preceded the creation of Minuteman
Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota, in 1999. The study contains a history of the
Minuteman system, site descriptions, environmental and socioeconomic assessments, and
alternatives for preservation and visitor center locations.
Kise Franks and Straw, Inc. Vint Hill Farms Station, Warrenton, Fauquier County,
Virginia: Phase I Cultural Resource Investigations Report. Philadelphia, PA: Kise
Franks and Straw, Inc., 1994. Available at the Virginia Department of Historic
Resources, Richmond, VA; not available on line. This report presents the historic context
of Vint Hill Farms Stafion (ca. 1860-1991) and its fianctions as a farm, field monitoring
station during World War II and afterward, and intelligence-equipment research and
development center during the Cold War. A total of sixty buildings were inventoried, as
well as two prehistoric archaeological sites.
Lauber, John F. "Minuteman ICBM National Historic Landmark, Ellsworth Air Force
Base, SD." National Historic Landmark Nomination. Minneapolis, MN: Hess, Roise
and Co., 1994. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library,
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line.
Lowe, James A., Lori E. Rhodes, and Katherine J. Roxlau. Mountain Home Air Force
Base Cold War Material Culture Inventory. Albuquerque, NM: Mariah Associates, Inc.,
85
1995. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air
Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. The report includes a Cold War historic
context for the base, as well as some discussion of property types; the detailed inventory
was not included.
Marceau, T. E., D. W. Harvey, and D. C. Stapp. Hanford Site Historic District: History
of the Plutonium Production Facilities, 1943-1990. Columbus, OH: Battelle Press, 2003.
This volume discusses the history of the Hanford site from its construction during the
Manhattan Project to its continued activities during the Cold War. It includes
information on the facilities, the workforce, historic preservation, and other topics.
Mattson, Wayne O., and Martyn D. Tagg. "We Develop Missiles, Not Air! ": The Legacy
of Early Missile, Rocket, Instrumentation, and Aeromedica I Research Development at
Holloman Air Force Base. Holloman Air Force Base, NM: Holloman Air Force Base,
Cultural Resources Publication No. 2, 1995. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat
Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. This
publication is the result of a Department of Defense Cold War Legacy-fiinded project,
the Thematic Study of Early Missile, Instrumentation, and Test Objects Project (Legacy
No. 767). The study was designed as a demonstration project to begin the identification
and documentation of such sites on Holloman AFB lands. The various property types
associated with missile and rocket complexes, instrumentation facilities, and aeromedical
research laboratories are described, together with historic contexts. The property types
are analyzed for potential National Register of Historic Places eligibility. Cultural
resource management considerations are also presented.
Murphey, Joseph. McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey: Supplement to Reconnaissance
Sun'ey of Cold War Properties, McGuire Air Defense Missile Site, New Egypt, New
Jersey. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1998. Available in hard copy at the Air Combat
Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at Travis AFB;
not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command
Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 8-A. This series was completed as a
single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real property surveys
and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States to identify
potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. It is part of a
reconnaissance survey of Cold War properties conducted at McGuire AFB that found one
group eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places: the SAGE
(Semi- Automated Ground Environment) complex. All of the buildings in the complex
were of less than fifty years of age when the report was prepared. The site, which retains
sufficient integrity to justify its eligibility as a district, is considered exceptionally
significant for its associations with Cold War technology. The period of significance is
1959-1972.
Nolte, Kelly, Mark A. Steinback, and Amber L. Courselle. Military Historic Context
Emphasizing the Cold War Including the Identification and Evaluation of Above Ground
Cultural Resources for Thirteen Department of Defense Installations in the State of
Georgia. Fort Benning, GA: Fort Benning Military Reservation and Department of
86
Defense Legacy Resource Management Program, 2006. Available as a PDF file at the
DoD Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Network and Information Exchange
Web site, http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/upload/03- 1 75-Final-Repoi1.pdf The report
contains historic contexts and descriptions of property types by service branch for the
following installations: Fort McPherson (1885), Fort Benning (1918), Fort Stewart
(1940), Hunter Army Air Field (1940), Moody Air Force Base (1940), Fort Gillem
(1941), Robins Air Force Base (1941), Fort Gordon ( 1 94 1 ), Naval Air Station Atlanta
(1941), Dobbins Air Reserve Base (1942), Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany (1952),
Naval Supply Corps School Athens ( 1 954), and Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay
(1978).
Price, Kathy. Northern Defenders: Cold War Context ofLaddAir Force Base, Fairbanks,
Alaska, 1947-1961. Fort Collins, CO: Center for Ecological Management of Military
Lands, 2001 . Available as a PDF file at the U.S. Army Alaska Web site,
http://www.usarak.armv.mil/conservation/files/Ladd%20Air%20Force%20Base%20Stud
vpdf The study provides a historic context for Ladd AFB before it became Fort
Wainwright in 1961 . A bibliography and a building-by-building inventory are included.
Reed, Mary Beth, and Mark Swanson. Evaluation of Selected Cultural Resources at Fort
Monmouth, New Jersey: Context for Cold War Era, Revision of Historic Properties
Documentation, and Surx'ey of Evans Area and Sections of Camp Charles Wood. Stone
Mountain, GA: New South Associates, 1996. Available as a PDF file at the InfoAge
Web site, http://www.infoage.org/html/contents-ciT.html. The report includes the historic
contexts noted in the title, plans and drawings, a bibliography, and an inventory of
significant buildings.
Sackett, Russell, Brian Knight, Sue Sitton, and Martha Yduarte. Fort Bliss Integrated
Cultural Resources Management Plan, 2008-2012. Ft. Bliss, TX: Conservation Branch,
Directorate of Public Works, 2008. Available as a PDF file at the Fort Bliss Web site,
https://www. bliss. ai'mv.mil/dpw/Environmental/documents/lCRMP_Volume%201%20_P
UBLIC.pdf The report contains a historic context for Fort Bliss through the Cold War,
the management plan, an inventory of sites, and descriptions (including photographs and
maps) of several proposed historic districts.
Spradlin, Carla, Richard Bierce, and Virge J. Temme. Historical and Architectural
Documentation Reports of Patrick Air Force Base, Cocoa Beach, Florida. Champaign,
IL: Tri-Services Cultural Resources Research Center, 1994. Available as a PDF file at
the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not
available on line. The report contains a Cold War historic context for the base as well as
HABS/HAER reports and evaluations for 1 50 buildings.
Stumpf, David K. "Titan II ICBM Missile Site 8." National Historic Landmark
Nomination. Tucson, AZ: Tucson Air Museum Foundation, 1993. Available as a PDF
file at the National Park Service Web site,
http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/samples/az/TitanlI.pdf
87
Swanson, Mark, and Lisa D. O'Steen. Evaluation of Selected Historic Properties at Vint
Hill Farms Station: Testing of Archaeological Site 44FQ137, Preparation of Civil War
Context, and Development of Cold War Context. Stone Mountain, GA: New South
Associates, 1995. Available at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond,
VA; not available on line. This report presents a detailed description of a prehistoric
archaeological site as well as a Civil War and Cold War historic context for Vint Hill
Farms Station. During the Cold War era (1946-1989), 203 buildings were constructed at
the installation. The report contains a buildings and structures inventory.
Tagg, Martyn D., Sonya Cooper, and Jean Fulton. "Airplanes, Combat and Maintenance
Crews, and Air Bases": The World War II and Early Cold War Architectural Legacy of
Holloman Air Force Base (ca. 1942-1962). HoUoman Air Force Base, NM: Holloman
Air Force Base, Cultural Resources Publication No. 6, 1998. Available as a PDF file at
the DoD Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Network and Information
Exchange Web site, http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/upload/FrNARCH_0.PDF. The report
contains both a general historic context for the World War II and the Cold War eras and a
specific context for Holloman AFB during those eras. It also enumerates four building
types (operational and support installations, combat weapons and support systems,
training facilities, and material development facilities) associated with the base during
those eras, discusses them in light of the historic contexts, and evaluates them for
potential National Register of Historic Places eligibility.
Temme, Virge J., David Dubois, David Winkler, John Lonnquest, and Aaron Chmiel.
Historical and Architectural Documentation Reports of Calumet Air Force Station,
Calumet, Michigan. Champaign, IL: Tri-Services Cultural Resources Research Center,
1995. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air
Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. The report contains a Cold War historic
context for the station as well as HABS/HAER reports and evaluations for 108 buildings.
. Historical and Architectural Documentation Reports of Havre Air Force
Station, Havre, Montana. Champaign, IL: Tri-Services Cultural Resources Research
Center, 1995. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library,
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. The report contains a Cold War
historic context for the station as well as HABS/HAER reports and evaluations for
seventy-two buildings.
, David Dubois, David Winkler, John Lonnquest, and James Eaton.
Historical and Architectural Documentation Reports ofGibbsboro Air Force Station,
Gibbsboro, New Jersey. Champaign, IL: Tri-Services Cultural Resources Research
Center, 1995. Available as a PDF file at the Air Combat Command (ACC) library,
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on line. The report contains a Cold War
historic context for the station as well as HABS/HAER reports and evaluations for
sixteen buildings.
Temme, Virge J., David Winkler, and John Lonnquest. Historical and Architectural
Documentation Reports of Fin ley Air Force Station, Fin ley. North Dakota. Champaign,
IL: Tri-Services Cultural Resources Research Center, 1995. Available as a PDF file at
the Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not
available on line. The report contains a Cold War historic context for the station as well
as HABS/HAER reports and evaluations for thirty-five buildings.
Ullrich, Rebecca Ann, and Michael Anne Sullivan. Historic Context and Buildings
Assessments for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Built Environment.
Livermore, CA: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National
Laboratories, 2007. The report contains a historic context for the laboratory and
evaluations of buildings at the site.
Waddell, Karen. Cold War Historical Context, 1951-1991, Fort Richardson, Alaska,
United States Army Alaska. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, 2003.
Available as a PDF file at the U.S. Army Alaska Web site,
http://www.usarak.armv.mil/conservationi/files/Fort_Richardson_Cold_War_Historical_C
ontext.pdf The report contains a historic context for Fort Richardson from WWII
through the Cold War. It also includes a discussion of property types and themes, maps,
a list of buildings, and a detailed time line for the Cold War and important dates in the
history of Fort Richardson.
Webster, Julie, Megan Tooker, Dawn Morrison, Susan Enscore, Suzanne Loechl, and
Martin Stupich. Fort Hood Building and Landscape Inventoiy with JVWll and Cold War
Context. Champaign, IL: Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, 2007.
Available as a PDF file at the Defense Technical Information Center Web site,
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA485337«S:Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf The report
contains inventories and evaluations of 463 buildings and landscapes constructed or
created at Fort Hood (including the Main Post, North Fort Hood, and West Fort Hood)
between 1942 and 1963. It also contains a historic context, 1942-1989, as well as
photographs.
Weitze, Karen J. Andrews Air Force Base, Camp Springs, Matyland: Inventoiy of Cold
War Properties. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at
Andrews AFB; not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air
Mobility Command Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 1 . This series was
completed as a single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real
property surveys and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States
to idenfify potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The
resources are primarily associated with the tactical and strategic network created between
1949 and 1962. Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control
facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircrafi; missile
housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of
age when the report was prepared. A total of 28 buildings and structures were
inventoried. A detailed time line complements the narrative historic context.
89
. Aurora Pulsed Radiation Simulator HAER No. MD-144, Piano, TX: Geo-
Marine, Inc., 1996. This study contains an extended narrative and historic contexts for a
U.S. Army pulsed radiation simulator of the late 1960s.
. Charleston Air Force Base, Charleston, South Carolina: Inventory of Cold
War Properties. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at
Charleston AFB; not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air
Mobility Command Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 2. This series was
completed as a single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real
property surveys and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States
to identify potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The
resources are primarily associated with the tactical and strategic network created between
1949 and 1962. Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control
facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircraft; missile
housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of
age when the report was prepared. A total of 70 buildings and structures were
inventoried. A detailed time line complements the narrative historic context.
. Dover Air Force Base, Dover, Delaware: Inventory of Cold War
Properties. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at Dover
AFB; not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air Mobility
Command Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 3. This series was
completed as a single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real
property surveys and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States
to identify potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The
resources are primarily associated with the tactical and strategic network created between
1949 and 1962. Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control
facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircraft; missile
housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of
age when the report was prepared. A total of 23 buildings and structures were
inventoried. A detailed time line complements the narrative historic context.
. Eglin Air Force Base, 1931-1991: Installation Buildup for Research, Test,
Evaluation, and Training. San Diego, CA: KEA, Inc., 2001 . This study contains a
detailed historic context for the installation, with a focus on the Cold War decades.
. Grand Forks Air Force Base, Grand Forks, North Dakota: Inventory of
Cold War Properties. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the
Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at
Grand Forks AFB; not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air
Mobility Command Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 4. This series was
completed as a single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real
property surveys and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States
to identify potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The
90
resources are primarily associated with the tactical and strategic network created between
1949 and 1962. Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control
facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircraft; missile
housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of
age when the report was prepared. A total of 242 buildings and structures were
inventoried. A detailed time line complements the narrative historic context.
. Guided Missile Testing in New Mexico: The Air Force at HoUoman-WJiite
Sands, 1947-1970. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1997. Available as a PDF file at the
Air Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; not available on
line. The study contains a Cold War-Era historic context for the base and the German
scientific community, as well as a lengthy analysis of testing programs and property types.
Numerous reports related to Holloman AFB are cited.
. Historic Range Context: Air Armament Center, Eglin Air Force Base,
Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., June 2007. This study was published in two volumes: Vol.
I, Narrative Ovennew and Appendix A: Radar and Instrumentation Sites, and Ch'er-
Water Test Areas, 1936/1939-1996; Vol. 2, Appendix B: Laird Test Areas, 1936/1939-
1996. The publication documents the facilities across land and water test ranges
associated with Eglin AFB, with many historic maps and photographs and focuses on the
Cold War decades.
. McChord Air Force Base, Tacoma, Washington: Inventory of Cold War
Properties. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at
McChord AFB; not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air
Mobility Command Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 5. This series was
completed as a single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real
property surveys and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States
to identify potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The
resources are primarily associated with the tactical and strategic network created between
1949 and 1962. Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control
facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircraft; missile
housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of
age when the report was prepared. A total of 29 buildings and structures were
inventoried. A detailed time line complements the narrative historic context.
. PAVE PAWS Beak Air Force Base HAER No. CA-319. San Diego, CA,
and Piano, TX: KEA Environmental, Inc., and Geo-Marine, Inc., 2006. This sUidy
includes a full context of American and Russian large-phased aiTay radars of the late
Cold War.
. Scott Air Force Base, Belleville, Illinois: Inventoiy of Cold War Properties.
Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the Air Combat Command
(ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at Scott AFB; not available
on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command Cold War
91
Series Report of Investigations Number 6. This series was completed as a single project,
a combined command-wide inventory and context of real property surveys and
evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States to identify potentially
significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The resources are primarily
associated with the tactical and strategic network created between 1949 and 1962.
Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control facilities; readiness
and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircraft; missile housings and assembly-test
units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of age when the report was
prepared. A total of 60 buildings and structures were inventoried. A detailed time line
complements the narrative historic context.
. Travis Air Force Base, Fairfield, California: Inventory of Cold War
Properties. Piano, TX: Geo-Marine, Inc., 1996. Available in hard copy at the Air
Combat Command (ACC) library, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and likely at Travis
AFB; not available on line. The report was prepared as U.S. Air Force Air Mobility
Command Cold War Series Report of Investigations Number 7. This series was
completed as a single project, a combined command-wide inventory and context of real
property surveys and evaluations conducted at selected installations in the United States
to identify potentially significant Cold War-related buildings and structures. The
resources are primarily associated with the tactical and strategic network created between
1949 and 1962. Specific property types include radar enclaves; command and control
facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and strategic aircraft; missile
housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. All were of less than fifty years of
age when the report was prepared. A total of 50 buildings and structures were
inventoried. A detailed time line complements the narrative historic context.
92
Appendix A
Registration Requirements for Listing in the National Register of Historic Places
This section is intended to assist agencies and individuals in evaluating properties related
to the Cold War for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for their association with
the Cold War must be able to illustrate one or more of the topics identified in the historic
context. The association must have been established between the beginning of the Cold
War (approximately at the end of World War II) and December 25, 1991, when Mikhail
Gorbachev signed the document officially disbanding the Soviet Union.
The properties must be significant at the national, state, or local level and retain sufficient
integrity to be listed.
Significance
According to National Register regulations (36 CFR 60), the quality of significance in
American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in
districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design,
setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. They must also satisfy at least
one of the following four criteria:
(A) Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns
of our history ;
(B) Associated with the lives of significant persons in our past;
(C) Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction,
or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a
significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction;
(D) Has yielded or may be likely to yield information important in history or prehistory.
Criterion A
To be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under this criterion,
properties must be associated with historic events or patterns of events with significance
at the national, state, or local levels.
Places associated with research and development under this criterion might include
laboratories and facilities designed for the testing of components. Places already listed in
the National Register of Historic Places include McKinley Climatic Laboratory,
Okaloosa County, Florida, and Oak Ridge Historic District, Anderson County, Tennessee.
Places associated with production and testing may include factories, arsenals, test sites,
and similar facilities. Places already listed in the National Register of Historic Places
include Fort Hancock and Sandy Hook Proving Ground Historic District, Monmouth
93
County, New Jersey; One-Million-Liter Test Sphere (Horton Test Sphere), Fort Detrick,
Frederick County, Maryland; and Rocky Flats Plant, Jefferson County, Colorado.
Places and resources associated with controlling and executing the national defense may
include command and control centers, missile sites, flight training facilities, ships and
aircraft, and military posts. Places and resources already listed in the National Register
of Historic Places include D-01 Launch Control Facility/D-09 Launch Facility, Ellsworth
AFB Jackson/Pennington County, South Dakota; Site Summit, Anchorage County,
Alaska; Tierra Amarilla AFS P-8 Historic District, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico;
Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 374-7 Site, Van Buren County, Arkansas; Titan II
ICBM Launch Complex 374-5 Site, Faulkner County, Arkansas; and Titan II ICBM
Launch Complex 373-5 Site, White County, Arkansas.
Places associated with politics and government may include dwellings, office buildings,
and other facilities. No properties meeting this criterion are currently known to be listed
in the National Register of Historic Places that are not also National Historic Landmarks.
Criterion B
To be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under this criterion,
properties must be associated with individuals who played significant roles in the Cold
War with relation to the themes described above. No properties meeting this criterion are
currently known to be listed in the National Register that are not also National Historic
Landmarks.
Criterion C
Places associated with the Cold War with relation to the themes described above that are
also good examples of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, planning, or
construction techniques may be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic
Places under this criterion. No properties meeting this criterion are currently known to be
listed in the National Register that are not also National Historic Landmarks.
Criterion D
This criterion is intended primarily for archeological resources. To be eligible for listing
in the National Register of Historic Places as significant sites under this criterion, the
documentation for the property must demonstrate that physical remains at the site have
answered or are likely to answer research questions about topics identified in the historic
context. No properties meeting this criterion are currently known to be listed in the
National Register.
National Register Exceptions
Ordinarily, cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, properties owned by
religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures that have been moved from
their original locations, reconstructed historic buildings, properties primarily
commemorative in nature, and properties that have achieved significance within the past
fifty years may not be considered eligible for the National Register. However, such
94
properties will qualify if they are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria or if
they fall within the following categories:
(A) A religious property deriving primary significance from architectural or artistic
distinction or historical importance;
(B) A building or structure removed from its original location but which is primarily
significant for architectural value, or which is the surviving structure most importantly
associated with a historic person or event;
(C) A birthplace or grave of a historical figure of outstanding importance if there is no
appropriate site or building associated with his or her productive life; or
(D) A cemetery that derives its primary importance from graves of persons of
transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design features, or from association
with historic events;
(E) A reconstructed building when accurately executed in a suitable environment and
presented in a dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan, and when no other
building or structure with the same association has survived;
(F) A property primarily commemorative in intent if design, age, tradition, or symbolic
value has invested it with its own exceptional significance; or
(G) A property achieving significance within the past 50 years if it is of exceptional
importance.
All of the Cold War-related sites that are noted in the foregoing section as haying been
listed in the National Register meet exception criterion G. Their periods of significance
generally extend into the 1970s if not fiirther, well short of the fifty-year limit.
Areas of Significance
Several areas of significance can be associated with the Cold War. Derived from the
historic context above, they include Communication, Engineering, Industry, Invention,
Maritime History, Military, Politics/Government, and Science. These areas of
significance and others are explained in National Register Bulletin: Guidelines for
Evaluating and Registering Archeological Properties (2000).
Integrity
For a property related to the Cold War to be listed in the National Register of Historic
Places, the property must retain sufficient integrity: the historic fabric that conveys its
historical significance. Seven standards can be used to assess the integrity of a property:
location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.
Location is the exact place where a historic event occurred or where a historic property
was constructed. A property associated with the Cold War will meet the standard of
location if it is the actual site where something significant happened or if it is the place
where a historic structure was built. Properties that have been moved may only be
considered for designation if they meet the requirements of Exception B above.
Design includes the architectural features that establish the historic form, plan, space,
structure, and style of a property. In districts, design reflects the way in which buildings,
95
sites, and structures relate to each other. If essential design elements are lost in the
process of rehabilitation or adaptive reuse, the integrity of the property will be reduced.
Setting relates to the environment in which a property is located. A building constructed
in a rural location will have greater integrity of setting if the surroundings are still rural
than if they have been enveloped by new structures.
Materials are the elements from which a structure is built. Eligible properties need to
retain a high degree of original materials, both on the exterior and on the interior.
Workmanship reflects the skill and labor required to construct a historic building or
structure. Generally, good workmanship is appropriate to the type of structure, whether a
modest dwelling, a missile site, or an architecturally sophisticated public building.
Feeling is a historic property's expression of the time in which it was constructed or used.
Modem intrusions, surfaces, and treatments may adversely affect the historic feeling of a
property.
Association is the direct link between an important historic event or person and a specific
site. A site where a significant event actually occurred or where a creative person did his
work will have a strong element of association if the property still conveys its historic
character through the existence of other physical features.
The integrity of an archeological site is a relative measure depending on the historic
context of the property. A property with good archeological integrity will have relatively
intact and complete deposits that have not been severely affected by subsequent activities
or natural processes. Few archeological sites have completely undisturbed deposits
because of the continuing occupation or periodic reuse of most sites. An archeological
site with good integrity, therefore, will generally contain deposits that reflect the
activities that took place there and the time during which they occurred — qualities related
to the standards listed above for evaluating integrity. For detailed guidance on evaluating
the integrity of archeological sites, see National Register Bulletin: Guidelines for
Evaluating and Registering Archeological Properties (2000).
Evaluation
Historic properties considered for listing in the National Register must be evaluated
against other comparable properties also associated with the Cold War. Through such
evaluation, those that have a strong association with the era, are significant on the
national, state, or local levels, and possess good integrity will be the best properties to be
considered for listing.
Properties associated with the Cold War that are eligible for listing in the National
Register of Historic Places are rare. Many of the places and buildings that may have
been associated with the era no longer exist, having been dismantled or destroyed in
accordance with the provisions of various treaties or because newer technologies have
required their replacement for military purposes.
96
Appendix B
National Register Properties and Study List
This appendix lists Cold War-related properties that have national, state, or local
significance. The properties in the first two categories below are either listed in the
National Register of Historic Places or have been determined eligible for listing (DOE).
The third category, the Study List, typically contains those properties identified in the
course of this theme study that may be eligible for listing in the National Register of
Historic Places, although additional research is necessary in most cases to confirm their
significance and integrity. Because of the unusual nature of Cold War-related properties
and because the number of potentially eligible properties is enormous, however, the third
category below contains a discussion instead of a list.
National Register Properties (Listed)
Abo Elementary School and Fallout Shelter, Eddy County, New Mexico (listed on
September 29, 1999)
This school was constructed in Artesia in 1962. Between that date and 1989, the building
played a role in civil defense as a designated fallout shelter.
Building 710, Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, Region 6 Operations Center,
Jefferson County, Colorado (listed on March 2, 2000)
This building, located in Lakewood, was completed in 1969 as one of eight civil defense
operations centers. It is a bunker-like facility designed to withstand nuclear attack and
fallout. Since 1979, it has housed the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region 8
Operations Center.
D-01 Launch Control Facility/D-09 Launch Facility, Ellsworth AFB
Jackson/Pennington County, South Dakota (listed on November 29, 1999)
The launch facility (D-09) and the launch control facility (D-01), located about eleven
miles apart, together comprise the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. The missile
silo was constructed in 1963 and operated by the 66th Strategic Missile Squadron of the
44th Strategic Missile Wing. It still contains a missile (unarmed) visible to visitors. The
launch control center consists of an above-ground building and the underground control
center itself
McKinley Climatic Laboratory, Okaloosa County, Florida (listed on October 6, 1997)
Completed in 1947 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, this refrigerated hangar replaced
Ladd Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska, as the Air Force's principal cold-weather test
site. It was named for Col. Ashley McKinley, who suggested the facility and oversaw its
construction. Virtually every airplane type in the Air Force inventory has been tested
there.
Nike Missile Site C47, Porter County, Indiana (listed on January 21, 2001)
This site, constructed 1954-1956, consists of two parcels located about one mile apart:
the Launcher Area and the Control Area. The Launcher Area includes underground
97
launch bunkers, and administrative building, a fallout shelter, and a vehicle maintenance
building. The Control Area contains thirteen buildings, five radar towers, a wastewater
treatment facility, and other resources. The site was closed in 1 974.
Oak Ridge Historic District, Anderson County, Tennessee (listed on September 5,
1991)
The federal government began condemning property for this site in 1942, and then
quickly constructed housing for the employees developing the atomic bomb at the nearby
Clinton Engineering Works. Longtime residents were evicted and their land condemned
because of the high level of secrecy surrounding the Manhattan Project. The new Oak
Ridge residential area enabled the government to keep both the workers and the works
isolated from public scrutiny.
Office of Civil Defense Emergency Operations Center, Jefferson County, Colorado
(listed on December 16, 1999)
This building, located in Lakewood, opened in 1 96 1 . It is an underground bunker-like
facility; only a mound and ventilation stacks are visible. It is presently abandoned and
empty.
One-Million-Liter Test Sphere (Horton Test Sphere), Ft. Detrick, Frederick County,
Maryland (listed on November 23, 1977)
During the Cold War, unconventional weapons were developed and tested but never used
in warfare. The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories constructed this testing
facility and used it from 1 95 1 to 1 968 to study infectious-agent aerosols and munitions.
Although a fire in 1 974 destroyed the building that housed the facility, the test sphere
remains intact.
Rocky Flats Plant, Jefferson County, Colorado (listed on May 19, 1997)
This plant, located north of Denver, operated from 1952 to 1989 to process and machine
plutonium into detonators or "triggers" for nuclear weapons. Dow Chemical and
Rockwell International managed the facility successively until environmental violations
resulted in the plant's temporary closure in 1989. Environmental cleanup then became
the major priority at the site. The site's nuclear weapons production mission ended
officially in 1993.
Site Summit, Anchorage County, Alaska (listed on July 11, 1996)
One of eight Nike missile sites constructed in Alaska, Site Summit was completed in
1958 to protect Anchorage, Fort Richardson, and Elmendorf Air Force Base. The site
consists of a launch area and a control area some distance away. Live-fire exercises took
place at Site Summit until 1964, when nearby population expansion rendered them too
dangerous. The site was deactivated in 1 979.
Tierra Amarilla AFS P-8 Radar Site Historic District, Rio Arriba County, New
Mexico (listed on February 26, 200 1 )
The earliest radar station at this location was constructed in 1949 atop the mesa.
Permanent buildings were constructed between 1950 and 1952. Part of a network of
98
defensive radar sites, AFS P-8 operated until 1958, when it was closed. The site was
transferred to the state of New Mexico three years later. Since then, although part of the
facility has been dismantled, the state has been developing a management plan for
preser\'ation and interpretation.
Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 374-7 Site, Van Buren County, Arkansas (listed on
February 18,2000)
This Titan II facility is one of three associated with the 308th Strategic Missile Wing in
Arkansas and was a component in a Multiple Property Submission. There, on September
19, 1980, a disaster occurred when a missile exploded in its launch duct after a fuel leak,
killing an airman and injuring twenty-one people. The launch facility, essentially
destroyed, was soon sealed.
Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 Site, White County, Arkansas (listed on March
6, 2000)
This Titan II facility is one of three associated with the 308th Strategic Missile Wing in
Arkansas and was a component in a Multiple Property Submission. Site 373-4 was the
first (1961-1963) of eighteen Titan II missile sites constructed in Arkansas. In 1965, an
accidental fire killed fifty-three civilian workers who were modifying the launch complex.
The site was deactivated late in the 1980s.
Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 374-5 Site, Faulkner County, Arkansas (listed on
February 18,2000)
This Titan II facility is one of three associated with the 308th Strategic Missile Wing in
Arkansas and was a component in a Multiple Property Submission. The site contained
five missile silos. It was deactivated late in the 1980s.
National Register Properties (DOE)
Grand Forks AFB Safeguard ABM Installation, Grand Forks County, North Dakota:
Missile Radar Site Historic District (DOE on January 30, 1998)
Remote Sprint Launch Site 1 (DOE on June 18, 1998)
Remote Sprint Launch Site 2 (DOE on June 18, 1998)
Remote Sprint Launch Site 3 (DOE on June 18, 1998)
Remote Sprint Launch Site 4 (DOE on June 18, 1998)
In 1967, Grand Forks Air Force Base was selected as an anti-ballistic missile site.
Because of changes to the initial concept, environmental issues, and funding delays,
construction on perimeter acquisition radar and missile site radar installations did not
begin until 1970. The site did not become fully operational, including the installation of
Spartan and Sprint missiles, until 1975. Because of Congressional action and the ABM
Treaty of 1972, the site operated for less than a year and was abandoned in 1976 except
for the perimeter acquisition radar stations, which the Air Force began managing the next
year.
National Register Study List
99
Since 1991, surveys of Cold War-related facilities have produced hundreds of reports
and inventories listing thousands of resources that are potentially eligible for listing in the
National Register of Historic Places. The resources include individual buildings,
structures, sites, and objects, as well as districts that may consist of entire military
installations. These surveys are ongoing, in response to base closings, toxic-waste site
cleanups, proposals for adaptive reuse, and for other reasons, including — frequently — the
imminent demolition of resources.
Typically, the survey reports contain inventories and evaluations of buildings and
structures erected during a limited part of the Cold War and often record only certain
property types. For example. Fort Bliss Main Post Early Cold War BASOPS Building
Inventory and Evaluation, 1951-63, by Susan Enscore, Adam Smith, and Sunny Stone
(2006) inventories 160 Base Operations (BASOPS) buildings constructed at Fort Bliss
Main Post between 1951 and 1963. Some of the buildings are recommended for listing in
the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), but this inventory records only a small
number of the potential Cold War-related resources at Fort Bliss for the early Cold War
period, and none for the later period. Similarly, Karen J. Weitze's Grand Forks Air
Force Base, Grand Forks, North Dakota: Inventory of Cold War Properties (1996)
inventories 242 Cold War-related buildings and structures associated with the tactical
and strategic network created between 1949 and 1962. Property types include radar
enclaves; command and control facilities; readiness and alert complexes for tactical and
strategic aircraft; missile housings and assembly-test units; and weapons areas. Later
resources are not covered. Clearly, to produce a study list even for these two posts would
require a large amount of additional survey.
Because the universe of potentially eligible resources is so vast, and yet so largely
unknown, it is therefore not possible to develop a definitive "study list" of potentially
eligible properties. Instead, each researcher is encouraged to begin with the bibliography
and inventory contained in this theme study, and then to reach beyond them to state and
federal historic preservation offices, military installations of interest, and other sources to
develop his or her own study list for evaluation.
100
Appendix C
Cold War-Related National Park Service Units
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota
This site, Launch Facility Delta 9, was incorporated into the National Park Service in
1999. From 1963, when it opened, until it closed in 1991 as a result of the signing of the
START 1 treaty, the site contained a fiilly operational Minuteman missile. The launch
and control facilities, including the missile silo, have been restored and are open to the
public.
Nike Missile Site SF-88, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin County,
California
Constructed in 1954-1955, Nike Missile Site SF-88 guarded San Francisco with twenty
Nike Ajax missiles. In 1959, the missiles were replaced with Nike Hercules missiles.
The Army Air Defense Command ordered Site SF-88 closed in 1974. The site, included
in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, has been restored and is open to the public.
101
Appendix D
Preliminary National Inventory of Cold War-Related Sites and Resources
Because the identification of sites related to the Cold War is ongoing, this inventory is of
necessity preliminary and selective. It has been assembled from a wide variety of sources,
including preservation offices, Web sites, and various repositories. The result is a mix of
resources as broad as entire military posts and as specialized as individual Nike missile
sites or radar installations. In addition, some of the places listed have been demolished
since they were surveyed. It was beyond the scope of this theme study, however, to
revisit the sites and districts to determine which are still intact. Like the Bibliography,
the researcher must understand that this inventory is incomplete and preliminary rather
than comprehensive.
[See Excel Spreadsheet]
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